Papyrus clubs

This article was written for Campus Diary, an online magazine of my college for  Papyrus clubs.

Operating Systems – Which One to Use?

If you are in an engineering college, you would know of the debates that students arguing over operating systems available. This is a small comparison on what those have for the users. The two most prominent operating systems that widely differ in flavour are Windows and Linux. They were created with different intentions and it’s important to understand that what one OS can provide cannot be provided by the other.

Windows is a gift to gamers. This doesn’t imply Linux doesn’t support games or incapable of rendering stunning graphics; but, games on Linux are not as popular as games that run on windows. You won’t be finding the latest games in the market that runs on Linux; at least, not as easily as you would, if you are looking for windows games.

A good thing about Windows (XP, certainly not vista) is the user interface. Some of its user interface features are better than Linux; I am not talking about the looks, but the usability. It’s more usable when is freshly installed. It doesn’t come without a price. The system gets inefficient as you install more software, especially those which don’t come from a good source. If you had cracked a few games, you are bound to face problems.

Another reason many find compelling to use Windows is that every company, that makes hardware for PCs, tailor it to windows rather than any other operating system. You will find it easy to install drivers, and connect your mobile phones to PCs. Nonetheless, there were many problems reported by Vista users regarding compatibility with hardware.

On the other hand, Windows is very heavy and cumbersome in other aspects. There is nothing in Vista that would warrant a need for 2 GB ram space to ensure full performance. It has forced many to buy resources which are wasted to run just the OS. Many attribute it to the supposedly high graphics that Vista offers. But that’s just a fallacy. It doesn’t need so much to render that level of graphics. One can run a 3d desktop in Linux with 1 GB ram. Although it creates a market, it’s just wasting resources for nothing.

Windows also has a clumsy file system with multiple file system roots (C:\, D:\ …), which among other reasons, forces a compromise in security. Linux has a simple yet powerful file system and offers greater security. You needn’t be alarmed when you stick in a pen drive into your computer; needn’t worry about paying for the best virus protection tool that probably offers higher resistance to newly written viruses and worms; needn’t worry about numerous registry cleaning softwares. The list goes on.

Linux has a better equipped Command Line Interface and as a programmer you would find many of its features attractive. Linux is more robust in many ways. For example, you could take the infamous “segmentation fault”. If you read an illegal memory space, Linux reports a segmentation fault. On the other hand your VC++ compiler would hang. This is just an example among a multitude of conspicuous problems that annoy windows programmers.

As an engineer you would be handicapped without a UNIX like system. Windows is just for the home PCs. It’s not as scalable as Linux is. You could run Linux in a huge server machine as well as in very low configuration hardware. The entire gamut of embedded systems that use Linux talks about its scalability. Linux also is more powerful in terms of efficiency and thwarting intrusions. It’s the reason why most servers on the web run on Linux.

Furthermore, most academic research is done using Linux. If you know to use Linux well, you would have greater chances of getting research assistantships. You get a chance to modify Linux to make it suit your project better. You will have better control over the entire system.

All these comparisons don’t make one operating system better than the other. There are a several other operating systems including MAC, Solaris, UNIX, etc. They were developed for the different purposes they serve. A normal home user, inured to virus and worms, may compromise to settle down with a cheap (price) commercial operating system like windows; a corporation might purchase a tremendously costly UNIX box, or opt for an enterprise Linux box. The important thing is that if you are going to work in an engineering field, it’s mandatory to get accustomed to all different Operating Systems that are prevalent in your field. It’s fortunate that SSN provides such an opportunity to work on most of the popular environments available to the society.