[R&D] Telephony Applications/Suite for GNU/Linux - Galaxy S III General

Does anyone know of CELLUAR (i.e. with GSM towers, SIM cards, etc) telephony applications for Linux? I'm making a Gentoo "ROM" for the S3 whereby one runs Gentoo Linux on their S3 with X running instead of Android.
Something that would be a deal-breaker for most, is if it couldn't actually make phone calls. So does any one know of such applications?
NOTE: They'd have to be open-source or provide ARM versions, preferably open-source though.
NOTE: I can't post links yet, so just look up Gentoo Linux.

Related

Linux under virtualization?

Ok, so I'm not anywhere near the kind of programmer to be able to do this, since I pretty much just know basic, and a tiny bit of ANSI C, but I'm a Wallaby user, and would love to run Linux on my phone as my primary OS, but, as you all know, its far from usable on the Wallaby...
If the ARM processor supports virtualization, couldn't someone who's a much better coder than me write a virtual machine to run Linux on some more of these unsupported phones? I know its a bit on the "ugly hack" side, but it would give more people more freedom of choice.
It seems to me that it should be possible to emulate some already-known versions of the parts in the phone (such as lcd, gsm, usb, sd/mmc, etc) and just control the real thing through the windows api.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this could be an excellent way to make Linux work reliably on MOST windows mobile phones, at least until real compatibility is achieved. I know that it would be slower than the real thing, but hey, its better than nothing!
Under powered by far!
Virtual machines are highly inefficent methods of running code, especially for what you are proposing.
Think how slow the Java VM is for running even the most basic of Apps.
Now, you may point out that Xen and the like run virtual machines inside Linux - however these have to be specifically compiled for the hardware... which brings us write back to the problem we started with - Linux wont compile properly for the smart phone hardware.
Perhaps a more attractive solution is to look at porting Cygwin and all the Xcygwin tools to windows mobile. Again I have no real idea of how practical this is!
jummama said:
I'm a Wallaby user, and would love to run Linux on my phone as my primary OS, but, as you all know, its far from usable on the Wallaby...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wallaby is full of custom ASICs. Given the limited number of developers it's simply not worth investing time.
Otherwise, there is not techinical reason why Linux will not tun on Wallaby.
Ah well, just thought I'd throw it out there.. see what you all think of it. I just figured that it could be done at a reasonable speed, after seeing what virtual pc and vmware do on the pc, but maybe not. But yeah, what about the porting of cygwin to windows mobile? That seems to me like it would be quite a reasonable solution for a lot of phones.

Windows XP Embedded on HTC devices?

Hi folks
Recenty I got the Windows XP Embedded kit, and I was really satisfied and surprised with the performance of the directly built system on an old machine like a P1 @ 200 MHz with 64 MB of RAM, without a hard disk.
The main goal would be to run truly win32 apps on mobile devices, to give better functionality and compatibility.
Yet the builder supports x86 architecture only, but cannot be a big problem to port it to ARM pocessors.
What might be difficult are these things:
-Getting win32 drivers for built-in devices (ex. integrated SDIO/USB WLAN, BT adapter, touchscreen, and sound devices, and apps for them!)
-Saving user data on turning off (Ebmedded systems are designed for a workstation, like a cash register: prebuilt apps, and nothing more comfort ) like WM200x
If anybody has any suggestion are to get a warm welcome
bye
Yet the builder supports x86 architecture only, but cannot be a big problem to port it to ARM pocessors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you kidding me?
This would mean reverse engineering and recompiling every binary in the OS.
Do you have any idea how many hours something like that would take?
yup, you're right, but in theory it's possibe. I've seen a running DOS on a Microchip micro-controller, or for example the Atmel STK 1000 is Linux based, also seen an mPlayer app operational on the demo board at the college.
as you see, i'm not an experienced programmer, but i'm not afraid to ask
Yeah, the basic low-level binaries must be recompiled, and once it's ok, it might be usable with regular win32 apps, until you run an old DOS app, wich directly access the hardware.
A few years ago i was able to port Z80 software to 8086, and it wasn't easy.
I don't really know these things, just want to see opinions, possibilities, and suggestions.
exe files are binarys which are instructions directly for the cpu
it's not parsed by the operating system
so compiling the os is not enough every application needs to be recompiled too
The programs you mentioned have source available in one way or another (since DOS is very old there are clones, like freeDOS).
If you have the full source for an app and the right compiler, porting it to another CPU is feasible.
But, this is not the case with embedded XP. Getting the full source is impossible which means most of the system will have to be rewritten from scratch.
Just look at the Wine project to see what it takes, and they "have it easy" - they are just trying to simulate the APIs not change processor architecture. (Lets make it clear - ARM instruction set is very different from x86).
And as Rudegar said it will not let you run any program that has not been specially compiled for ARM CPU.
I know it sounds like we are trying to kill you idea here but its nothing personal, unfortunately it just isn't feasible. We would all like to be able to run desktop apps on our devices, but simply having embedded XP on them would not accomplish that. Also while many old DOS apps can be run using various emulators like pocketDOS, almost all Win32 apps take more resources than our little gadgets can offer.
I am fairly sure though that in 5 -10 years that problem will be fixed.
<_< man hours or not, reveng'ing this will have a bigger impact than just winDOS Mobile devices. Desktops have a use for this, definitely (because the Vista-Only crap is starting to hit the market). Too bad they don't provide assembly in programming classes anymore, obviously because they don't want anyone else to reverse engineer anything and spoil their foisting fun. <_<
In any case, IIRC XP Embedded is missing the install/uninstall engine, so you can't customize it after it's flashed onto the board. This isn't quite a good start - XPLite or 98Lite are better for reverse engineering from scratch (but they're too powerful for mobile devices).
The other alternative is porting ReactOS, which is a reimplementation of W2K. Those guys are "having a lot of fun" getting things to work, tho. <_<
Maybye Windows CE6 yes, but Windows XP Embedded no, because they must run at 686-AT/X platform IMB. Sorry of my English
linux would be a path
with most linux programs you can compile them yourself
using good old
./configure
make
make install
of cause gui programs could have issues displaying correct
on such a small screen
You MIGHT be able to pull it off by installing a minimal (very!) WinMo firmware and then have it autorun Bochs, which is known to be able to run the PC version of XP.. A customised, thinned-down XPe image should run fine under Bochs.
--W5i2

A Few questions regarding development for android..

Hello all,
I'm now the proud owner of an android phone (htc desire) and as a hobbiest programmer i'm of course intrested in making (free) apps for it. I come from a linux based devices background (like gp2x, wiz, dingoo a320) etc. So i'm used to the gcc toolchains and libs and I read a bit around about android programming. Am i correct in saying that is not possible to just use a gcc toolchain for programming android apps since android uses some sort of java virtual machine ?
Or is this possible after all, just like one woud make apps for linux based devices. I think the Answer will be NO but i still ask since i wasn't certain and did not find that much information about it.
Suppose it is not possible, my only option for porting linux based games / apps would be to use the NDK and split up the main functions of a game and make a shared lib out of it, which could be called using JNI from java right ?
But i have a question if this is the case...
I can't really imagine that all phone manufactures use the same hardware in their phone or even the same architecture, so suppose i would use the NDK to create a shared lib with basic functions of a game i wish to port, wouldn't this lib need to be build for the specific architecture of a certain phone and thus could only work on that phone ? or are all android phones arm based ?
So you could say my question basically comes down to this :
Will Using the ndk and apps created with it, be less compatible then a java only app for all the droid phones out there ?
thanks
hmm seems i can answer my own questions now, i hadn't looked at the official ndk site itselve yet and did not know it would have all the info i needed.
So using gcc toolchains only does not work,
android uses a (modified ?)java virtual machine called dalvik
de libraries do have to be build for a specific architecture, and all droid's (phones) do seem to run on arm, but in the future the x86 architecture will be supported as well.
HOWEVER,
one can target ARMv5TE or ARMv7-A (and in the future x86) and include the needed libs (per architecture) in the apk file, the droid system will do the rest by checking if a lib for the specific architecture is availible or not.
also it's worth to note that ARMv5TE libs should work on any arm based droid phone, BUT without hardware fpu support. Since all the (linux based) devices i programmed for had no hardware fpu either and weren't as near as powerfull as my desire is, i don't think using software floating point would be a problem for my needs and if it i do need it i can always use fixed point math.
Just thought i should write a small excerpt of that page here, since there might be other people looking for it eventually

[Q] Defference between my linux box and Iconia?

Hi all,
I apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge or any stupid questions i may ask.
I am a 3rd year Mechatronics Major so i am quite fluent on the majority of programming languages, however my experience to date has been primarily with embedded systems along with some basic setting up gentoo/ubuntu with apache and game servers and stuff. When it comes to getting into the guts of Linux i tend to get a little lost. Something i wish to work on over the next 5 weeks
I have just rooted my new a500, I was just wondering if anyone could tell me and subtle differences between (say) a gentoo box and my a500 at a command line level.
For example there seems to be no gcc compiler for the a500, is this because there is no compiler written for the a500 hardware or is it something to do with how andriod is written?
And if i want to install ssh client/server from the terminal (or any package really), is that possible (eg. for gentoo i would use emerge, ubuntu apt-get, etcetc.)
I have a bunch of other questions but i will leave it at that for now
Thanks
Chris
if u want to remote control of ur desktop use androidvnc....
get it from market....
Terminal emulator include a ssh client ! But i don't Thérèse is any package manager available
Anyway you can install a chrooted ubuntu on the A500! Should be more easy
Moved as not development, please read the rules and post in the correct section ONLY.
Hez said:
For example there seems to be no gcc compiler for the a500, is this because there is no compiler written for the a500 hardware or is it something to do with how andriod is written?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is based on Java Virtual Machine, all applications are bytecode, not native code. Thus it would require quite a bit of work to get a GCC with all of its pre-requisities in place on Android. I atleast am not aware of a single compiler for any language that would actually run on an Android device itself.
And if i want to install ssh client/server from the terminal (or any package really), is that possible (eg. for gentoo i would use emerge, ubuntu apt-get, etcetc.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I do not know if you can access Android Market in any way from the command line.

[POLL] What OS do you use?

Just curious to see exactly how many people actually use Linux or OSX a.k.a the only OSes you can build Android on which IMO all Android devs should be using
I'm running Manjaro, an Arch based distro
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk
Jhdoubleoseven said:
Just curious to see exactly how many people actually use Linux or OSX a.k.a the only OSes you can build Android on which IMO all Android devs should be using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha still on win 7...Waiting for win 10
Jhdoubleoseven said:
Just curious to see exactly how many people actually use Linux or OSX a.k.a the only OSes you can build Android on which IMO all Android devs should be using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are virtualization options availible for Windows such as cygwin I've used in the past that can help.
PC Gaming Master Race (Windows). Proud. xD
8.1 on one xubuntu 15.04 on another
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Jhdoubleoseven said:
Just curious to see exactly how many people actually use Linux or OSX a.k.a the only OSes you can build Android on which IMO all Android devs should be using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using fedora but why should all android devs use linux? I think you should use whatever you're comfortable with
Niropa said:
I'm using fedora but why should all android devs use linux? I think you should use whatever you're comfortable with
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because:
1) Android is a Linux system so if you wanna develop it it's best to know Linux up close and personal
2) Building Android things (like ROMs) on Linux is much more straightforward
3) Linux systems are much more secure and generally more stable (not related to Android, just in general)
4) Microsoft is a corporate evil that restricts the freedom of its users and encourages the use of proprietary software
OSX is also guilty of the same evils as Windows with the exception that OSX is a Unix system and therefore enjoys many of the same benefits as Linux
I've been a linux user since 1998, I'm comfortable building programs from scratch, used to build my own kernel (prior to 3.x) and have modified kernel modules to add support for some devices.
Having said that, I tried to build a kernel and system for an Android device some long time ago, did have the source tree for the device, but it always failed because some blob was missing or some source file had incorrect references to other files. I just tossed the towel, mainly because compilation took forever just to fail at the end. Besides I had to download like 40GB to set up the build environment.
Having previous linux experience did not help me much, as Android was different enough to what I knew. This was at the time gingerbread was the latest version ( Android 3 devices existed, but that's another story).
Hopefully things have changed, if so I might give it a try again.
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk
Jhdoubleoseven said:
Because:
1) Android is a Linux system so if you wanna develop it it's best to know Linux up close and personal
2) Building Android things (like ROMs) on Linux is much more straightforward
3) Linux systems are much more secure and generally more stable (not related to Android, just in general)
4) Microsoft is a corporate evil that restricts the freedom of it)sers and encourages the use of proprietary software
OSX is also guilty of the same evils as Windows with exception that OSX is a Unix system and therefore enjoys many of the same benefits as Linux
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) android is very different then any Linux distribution, as glock said having previous experience on Linux does not help much.
2) I agree with that point because Linux comes with a lot of tools needed to compile but if that's the only reason you need Linux for then it's better to just run it as a secondary OS on a virtual machine.
3) now that's a very silly point, Linux is only more secure because its more obscure then other operating systems and saying it is generally more stable is just wrong. With windows I had rarely any problems. With any Linux distribution I get very bad screen tearing, audio stops working after a reboot, many packages (steam for example) don't work without hours of troubleshooting and file transfers to my phone or music player make at least one song on every album sound like it got thrown in a blender and got chopped up before being transfered. There are many more problems which don't help my android development. When iI could be updating my ROMs I can't because I'm busy troubleshooting why my distribution decided not to pass grub.
4) that's also a very silly point stallman. With that logic you should not be using phones either because they contain proprietary blobs. The play store is proprietary. Most websites you visit are proprietary (including github which is needed for android development) your mp3s are proprietary, even your computer that you think is running all free software iis running a proprietary BIOS. I could go on all day about the proprietary software you use but I'm on my phone
Niropa said:
3) now that's a very silly point, Linux is only more secure because its more obscure then other operating systems and saying it is generally more stable is just wrong. With windows I had rarely any problems. With any Linux distribution I get very bad screen tearing, audio stops working after a reboot, many packages (steam for example) don't work without hours of troubleshooting and file transfers to my phone or music player make at least one song on every album sound like it got thrown in a blender and got chopped up before being transfered. There are many more problems which don't help my android development. When iI could be updating my ROMs I can't because I'm busy troubleshooting why my distribution decided not to pass grub.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I work for a major IT company. All system administrators- Window, Unix, Mainframe, or DBA have to use Linux as their OS because it is more secure than MS Windows. The base multi-user model of Unix makes it more secure, then add things like SELinux, and becomes very hard to compromise.
Your garbled songs sounds like you are disconnecting your device before all the files have finished transferring. Your screen tearing sounds like you are using a software or frame buffer driver instead of the accelerated driver for your video chipset. Sound can be a pita at times. A newer distro solved my issues (meaning updated kernel drivers) with sound. For Steam, I think I had to enable a repo, then just 'yum install steam'. It is not so much Linux is difficult as it is different from what you are used to.
alose said:
I work for a major IT company. All system administrators- Window, Unix, Mainframe, or DBA have to use Linux as their OS because it is more secure than MS Windows. The base multi-user model of Unix makes it more secure, then add things like SELinux, and becomes very hard to compromise.
Your garbled songs sounds like you are disconnecting your device before all the files have finished transferring. Your screen tearing sounds like you are using a software or frame buffer driver instead of the accelerated driver for your video chipset. Sound can be a pita at times. A newer distro solved my issues (meaning updated kernel drivers) with sound. For Steam, I think I had to enable a repo, then just 'yum install steam'. It is not so much Linux is difficult as it is different from what you are used to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol nice assumptions but no. I can assure you I'm not disconnecting it before its finished transferring, my only guess is it has something to do with libmtp and the way it handles file transfers which must be different then other operating systems. I use the open source amd drivers which give me screen tearing. I noticed proprietary drivers fixed it but then when I reboot its just a blank screen that iI cant be bothered to troubleshoot. I have steams repo enabled and it iinstalls fine with dnf but I can't figure out how to get it to actually open. Opening with the command line doesn't give me any errors to work with either sadly. Also as I stated in an earlier post I use fedora and am much more experienced with Linux then any other OS. I'm also on the latest kernel released (4.0.6 I think? I'll have to double check) and I still get issues with pulseaudio.
With all that being said I'm not trying to bash Linux and say windows is better,(like i said i use fedora myself and have been using other various distros for the past several years)my point was that you should use whatever works best for you and won't get in your way.
All runing linux
Jhdoubleoseven said:
Just curious to see exactly how many people actually use Linux or OSX a.k.a the only OSes you can build Android on which IMO all Android devs should be using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 laptop, raspberrypi, game pc, media pc, kib pc, all running flavor of Linux.:good:
Windows ME.
Posted using my phone.
Niropa said:
Lol nice assumptions but no. I can assure you I'm not disconnecting it before its finished transferring, my only guess is it has something to do with libmtp and the way it handles file transfers which must be different then other operating systems. I use the open source amd drivers which give me screen tearing. I noticed proprietary drivers fixed it but then when I reboot its just a blank screen that iI cant be bothered to troubleshoot. I have steams repo enabled and it iinstalls fine with dnf but I can't figure out how to get it to actually open. Opening with the command line doesn't give me any errors to work with either sadly. Also as I stated in an earlier post I use fedora and am much more experienced with Linux then any other OS. I'm also on the latest kernel released (4.0.6 I think? I'll have to double check) and I still get issues with pulseaudio.
With all that being said I'm not trying to bash Linux and say windows is better,(like i said i use fedora myself and have been using other various distros for the past several years)my point was that you should use whatever works best for you and won't get in your way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I definitely see your point. I guess it really depends on what you hardware you use Linux on; I run Arch on my old HP G71 from 2011 with an Intel Core 2 Duo and everything runs amazingly. The only issues I've ever had is pulseaudio (which magically fixed itself after some time) and a few crashes due to me using a custom kernel (linux-ck). In fact, the only problems I've ever had are completely due to a mistake on my part.
With the Microsoft it was mild sarcasm with a big point: pretty much everything in Windows is closed source. Pretty much everything in Linux is open source (depending on what distro you use, of course). I'm not afraid of proprietary; I run Plex Media Server and Google Chrome. But I made that choice to run those programs. Just like I made the choice of what window manager to run; how to log in to my system (I go through startx now); how to play music (mpd); how to interface with my network. All of these were choices I made in building my system from the ground up -- even with distros like Ubunutu you can still replace basically whatever you want. That's what I meant when I said that Windows takes away your freedom.
Mint 17 on C720 i3 Chromebook here!
Jhdoubleoseven said:
Because:
1) Android is a Linux system so if you wanna develop it it's best to know Linux up close and personal
2) Building Android things (like ROMs) on Linux is much more straightforward
3) Linux systems are much more secure and generally more stable (not related to Android, just in general)
4) Microsoft is a corporate evil that restricts the freedom of its users and encourages the use of proprietary software
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Tools to build apps for Android are cross-platformed. Using Eclipse IDE under Windows i compile every my app and don't see any restrictions making me want to migrate to Linux.
2) VirtualBox + Ubuntu solve this problem completely.
3) Not more secure and definitely not more stable. You can setup Linux to be less secure and setup Windows to be more secure. And if you compare how many side (i mean apps not included in distro) apps you use in Windows and in Linux, you will find the answer about security. Even light usage of Linux (mostly for kernel compilation and some AOSP code) produces different services/apps crash. So, if i would use Linux as i'm using Windows, there will be even more crashes.
What i really hate in Linux is how much time it requires to be prepared for some non-generic environment. If somehow happen distro doesn't provide required package (even from dedicated support server), or more worse if package version is different from required, then be prepared for "sex" with Linux. You can spend a lot of time to compile and most likely to fix incompatibilities in source code. Sometimes such preparation takes several days. And then when you are prepared, you can compile that code in 5 minutes. Nope.. Such productivity isn't for me. In most cases i even don't expect compilation because i simply want to use some utility. And then i find that pre-compiled version doesn't work. Because there is very low compatibility between different versions of Linux. Even binary compiled for Linux release couple years ago may not work in more modern Linux (unless it statically linked, but even in this case there is no warranty). And if it doesn't work, see my description about preparation to compile it
Btw, both VirtualBox and VMWare require special drivers for guest Linux to properly support folder sharing and VM window handling. And these drivers have to be recompiled with every minor kernel version update. This is IMHO very lame for Linux. Even after some kernel update (through standard distro package manager, so it's very minor update) VMWare stop to compile its drivers. So i have to find why and then patch the source code. And i often ask myself "Why i have to do this crap again and again?"
In Windows, i can take binary compiled for Windows XP, and use it in Windows 10. Interoperability of binaries between versions of Linux is a big red sign for me.
I was trying to migrate to Linux several times already in the past 10 years. And every time i find my self spending most of time for side tasks than my main projects.
Another thing i don't like in Linux is GUI. Not the design. It's OK for me to adapt to new interface. KDE or XFCE are fine. What i don't like in Linux GUI is how it works. Sometimes it lives its own life. Some windows appear when i don't expect, or i forgot about it already. It looks like GUI threads are running not in sync (or in very weak sync) with main code. I prefer MS Windows behavior when app tries to open the window, i cannot do anything. So, i know, something will happen soon. On Linux it's always a guess game "will some new window appear or app simply ignores my input."
4) From other side, you can see standardization of APIs and stable for many years SDK in Windows. As a software developer i care about it very much. There is no restriction for Open Source projects.
Absence (or nearly absence) binary compatibility between Linux versions, very flexible and often changing APIs can be considered as an additional security mechanism, but I'm against such methods.
---------- Post added at 06:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 AM ----------
P.S: About "Android is a Linux": it's completely wrong.
Android is an OS with high level of abstraction when it comes to devices.
To make this abstraction, Linux kernel is used. Nothing to do with Desktop Linux here.
Generally speaking, any kernel could be used to make this abstraction. It could be OpenBSD and even Windows kernel. Android wouldn't be different. Google choose Linux kernel to be free from other software developers - that's the only reason.
sorg said:
1) Tools to build apps for Android are cross-platformed. Using Eclipse IDE under Windows i compile every my app and don't see any restrictions making me want to migrate to Linux.
2) VirtualBox + Ubuntu solve this problem completely.
3) Not more secure and definitely not more stable. You can setup Linux to be less secure and setup Windows to be more secure. And if you compare how many side (i mean apps not included in distro) apps you use in Windows and in Linux, you will find the answer about security. Even light usage of Linux (mostly for kernel compilation and some AOSP code) produces different services/apps crash. So, if i would use Linux as i'm using Windows, there will be even more crashes.
What i really hate in Linux is how much time it requires to be prepared for some non-generic environment. If somehow happen distro doesn't provide required package (even from dedicated support server), or more worse if package version is different from required, then be prepared for "sex" with Linux. You can spend a lot of time to compile and most likely to fix incompatibilities in source code. Sometimes such preparation takes several days. And then when you are prepared, you can compile that code in 5 minutes. Nope.. Such productivity isn't for me. In most cases i even don't expect compilation because i simply want to use some utility. And then i find that pre-compiled version doesn't work. Because there is very low compatibility between different versions of Linux. Even binary compiled for Linux release couple years ago may not work in more modern Linux (unless it statically linked, but even in this case there is no warranty). And if it doesn't work, see my description about preparation to compile it
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, every distro is binary compatible -- binaries are based on the processor, so every Linux x86-64 computer can run any binaries on my Arch Linux system. You're either referring to package compatibility, as different distros use different package managers, or just that you don't have all the dependencies (such as the libraries required to run).
Secondly, I'm surprised to hear how many crashes and issues you have with Linux... I easily get an uptime of 30 days+ without a single issue and then choose -- not get forced -- to reboot because my kernel is out of date. I've heard Ubuntu has given people issues but I use Arch which required me to know my hardware to install exactly what I need -- nothing more. Arch, being rolling release and up-to-date, is amazingly stable and also ensures you are in the driver's seat.
Thirdly, while you're right that you can have a secure Windows, the problem is how freely Windows gives out root permissions -- it's just asking for malware. Especially if you make youeself an admin, have fun running as root 24/7. Any *nix OS has an incredibly strong user system -- my system itself has over 20 users on it even though I am the only human who uses it. The other 19 users run programs and keep privileges separate. That and Linux is open source, so instead of like 1000 people looking through the source code you have over 10,000 eyes that may see any vulnerabilities. Windows "security through obscurity" is absolute crap; I will gladly use Windows once they go open source and I can get rid of that bloated UI and use something I have full control of.
Like you said, it really depends on a lot of things... however, as a power user I could never go back to Windows. I need freedom and transparency; Windows offers neither. Definitely don't think less of people who use Windows; some people want things to just work and don't care about anything else. I like things to work exactly like I want them to work and to be in control of what goes on with my computer. It's really just preference; my system is constantly changing and I configured everything myself. It's hard to describe, but when your OS becomes a project -- your project -- that you put time and effort in to get working like you want it's a really gratifying feeling
Jhdoubleoseven said:
or just that you don't have all the dependencies (such as the libraries required to run).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly. Sorry for wrong wording.

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