(Linux) Why is being able to modify your OS helpful?

Type1Ninja

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Title says it all.
I'm just curious: I get that the cool thing with Linux is that you can modify your operating system, but I can't tell why that would be helpful. I'm not for or against Windows or Linux (although I don't like Mac OSX), I'm just curious.
I'm not looking to start a Windows/Linux flame war, ok? :p
 

psp

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Jul 29, 2019
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I can't really answer you on that, except that Linux supposedly uses significantly less resources compared to most other modern/popular OS's.

Sadly, I can't dual boot ubuntu/linux alongside windows. (Microsoft being retarded @$$holes and having UEFI and secure boot (I can't disable them on my computer))
 

gattsuru

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May 25, 2013
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It varies very heavily depending on what you're looking to do, and what type of user you are.

For introductory users, it means you can find a distribution of Linux that someone else has modified that meets your needs. There are distributions nearly as fully featured as Windows, and others smaller than 100 MB that can run on ancient hardware, shells that go anywhere from text-only to full 3d, and countless other options. There are versions that run on ARM architecture, or on other even more specialized processors, distros built for pure media editing and others to handle server structures best. If your current version of Linux switches the Start Menu to take up the full screen, there are other versions that'll do it the way you want. It's fairly easy to find a distribution that's high-performance for gaming, or very robust for running a display forever.

At an intermediate level, you can make those changes yourself. It's quite possible to roll a LinuxFromScratch or ArchLinux distro that exactly matches your needs and nothing more, and in doing so learn a lot about how the system works at a fairly low level. In some cases, you can also get performance gains, although as a practical matter those gains are generally too small to be worth the time.

If you're more experienced, or a programmer, it means that you can also make changes to match what you're aiming to accomplish. If the code breaks under certain circumstances, or if you want to adapt it to do something else, or if you want to change how it looks, you can. It's hard, and most people don't, but it's possible where it just doesn't work in the closed source world. If you have specialized hardware, it's much easier to develop in a *nix environment than a Windows one, and most parallel computing work starts in the open source world. This isn't always related to changing the Linux kernel itself -- very few people do or even have the ability to do so -- but much more of the Linux application world lets you do this than the Windows one.

Finally, because it is open-source, you can theoretically be confident in knowing what it's doing. There are a lot of components of Windows and OSX that are black boxes : we know what goes in and comes out, but we don't know why or even what it's doing. If you're very interested in security, this matters.

On the downside, it's hella-frustrating to learn.
 

Type1Ninja

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Jul 29, 2019
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It varies very heavily depending on what you're looking to do, and what type of user you are.

For introductory users, it means you can find a distribution of Linux that someone else has modified that meets your needs. There are distributions nearly as fully featured as Windows, and others smaller than 100 MB that can run on ancient hardware, shells that go anywhere from text-only to full 3d, and countless other options. There are versions that run on ARM architecture, or on other even more specialized processors, distros built for pure media editing and others to handle server structures best. If your current version of Linux switches the Start Menu to take up the full screen, there are other versions that'll do it the way you want. It's fairly easy to find a distribution that's high-performance for gaming, or very robust for running a display forever.

At an intermediate level, you can make those changes yourself. It's quite possible to roll a LinuxFromScratch or ArchLinux distro that exactly matches your needs and nothing more, and in doing so learn a lot about how the system works at a fairly low level. In some cases, you can also get performance gains, although as a practical matter those gains are generally too small to be worth the time.

If you're more experienced, or a programmer, it means that you can also make changes to match what you're aiming to accomplish. If the code breaks under certain circumstances, or if you want to adapt it to do something else, or if you want to change how it looks, you can. It's hard, and most people don't, but it's possible where it just doesn't work in the closed source world. If you have specialized hardware, it's much easier to develop in a *nix environment than a Windows one, and most parallel computing work starts in the open source world. This isn't always related to changing the Linux kernel itself -- very few people do or even have the ability to do so -- but much more of the Linux application world lets you do this than the Windows one.

Finally, because it is open-source, you can theoretically be confident in knowing what it's doing. There are a lot of components of Windows and OSX that are black boxes : we know what goes in and comes out, but we don't know why or even what it's doing. If you're very interested in security, this matters.

On the downside, it's hella-frustrating to learn.
Ok... So: Optimizations, and being able to change stuff about all your programs, and knowing how EVERYTHING works. Cool. :)
 

Harvest88

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Jul 29, 2019
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I can't really answer you on that, except that Linux supposedly uses significantly less resources compared to most other modern/popular OS's.

It's does for sure with stock install of Ubuntu, to give you a prospective between Windows vs. Ubuntu on a dual core 1.9Ghz AMD laptop..

Windows ran very slow and would takes about literally 5 minutes to shut down and boot up in about 3 minutes. Vs Ubuntu stock install takes those minutes time to just seconds away from a boot up and shut down and despite the laptop being a mere "potato" it good enough to browse, run important "work related" programs and other non gaming stuffs like a charm.

At the end of the day if your looking a good way to re purpose an old computer/laptop then starting with a stock or even leaner Ubuntu install is a great way to get started. Then you can use it as your "work" computer or a "file store" or anything else you could offload some of your load from your "main" computer are just a few ways.
 
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lenscas

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There is also lubuntu which should be even faster then ubuntu, however I have no experience with lubuntu and only limited expirence with ubuntu so I can not verify this claim.
 
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Wagon153

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There is also lubuntu which should be even faster then ubuntu, however I have no experience with lubuntu and only limited expirence with ubuntu so I can not verify this claim.
I've used it. It's based on the same OS as Ubuntu(I want to say Debian?). But it's DE(desktop environment) is significantly lighter. So it's ideal for old Pentium 4s.
 
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lenscas

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I've used it. It's based on the same OS as Ubuntu(I want to say Debian?). But it's DE(desktop environment) is significantly lighter. So it's ideal for old Pentium 4s.
I believe that lubuntu is based on ubuntu. ubuntu is based on debian and I believe debian sid to be more precise but I might be wrong about that.
 
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