Can't decide Micro$oft or Linux 1

[Teknoratti]

I am on the ropes. I have more experience in M$, but over the past 2 months I have been using Linux and I really want to be more proficient. I don't want to be a jack of all trades master of none, so I want to actually touch Linux about 65% and M$ 35% or vice versa.

Is anyone actually a hardcore vet in both OS's?

 

[jsaxe]

I don't know if I qualify as hardcore, been using MS products since DOS 3.3, currently Win2KPro; Redhat Linux since 5.1., holding at 8.x. Have also worked with Solaris, SCO SysV, AIX, OpenBSD Unices and briefly with VMS.

Don't know what you want to do with either of 'em... So "where do you want to go today"?

Bottom line, as I see it, you'll have a greater depth knowledge of your system and software with Linux, out of necessity; but you will be limited in what you want to do. For example the Adobe product and GIMP are both wonderful programs, but I have been using the Adobe product for over a dozen years, I can make it do for me what I want, and I don't have to re-invent the wheel. Guess what? It "don't run" on Linux. Neither does my ISP support Linux. So guess where I turn first...

Despite the fact that Linux is *fun*, some of the window managers/themes look *damn* sexy,
But hey, my synthesizer and super-nifty sound board make my Win2K Pro box barf, so I have to keep a Win98SE machine around...

See, things could be worse.

Use both, what the hell, computers are cheap these days.

In my job, I frequently support user and guest machines running WinNT 4, and oh, how I wish there was some way to "su root" and do what I have to do without logging in and out and in and out...

Hope this helps,
jsaxe

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson (R.I.P. Doc)

 

[mrdenny]

just a side note, there is a way to su root on windows. From a cmd shell

runas /user:DOMAIN\username {Command}

It'll prompt for a password and open the Command with the passed account. You can use this to run cmd, mmc, etc.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

(Not quite so old any more.)

 

[langleymass]

If you want to get ahead, you will need to know both Microsoft and Linux.

 

[kHz]

You can focus on one and get to the top of that specialty if that is what you desire. You don't have to know both, and one cannot be expected to be an expert in both.

 

[jsaxe]

mrdenny,

Thanks for the tip!
Amazing how you can work with something for years and something just gets past you.

Have a star!

[on topic]
Learning linux will give you an "in" in the UNIX world, since the shell is similar. When I found I had to support AIX as part of a job, I ran my RedHat Linux-powered laptop in character mode using the Korn Shell which was what was used on the job. (I was used to the 'bourne-again' shell, not like there's a lot of difference, really.)

UNIX/Linux haters tend to dislike the character mode commands, saying they're not intuitively named and blah-blah-blah, but you get used to it. Or you can just go fsck* yerself, as we used to say.

jsaxe

* File System ChecK --So what's so unintuitive about that?


"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson (R.I.P. Doc)

 

[kHz]

AIX is much different than most other Unix variants, though, and Red Hat or others are not going to be a seamless transition. For example, managing disks on AIX vs. other Unix is COMPLETELY different. The AIX LVM will give you a disk name of hdisk0 while on Solaris (and others) you would have c1t0d0 (or similar). On AIX you cannot set semaphores like on Solaris, because AIX by default sets them to a high level that you don't need to change them. AIX can and should be tuned but it saves you from a lot of "stuff."

AIX is the best Unix!