in reply to Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice..

I can tell right away that you are not using a "real" windows :)

I'm using windows 2000 both at home and at work, and that is by far the most productive environment for me, although I use *NIX quite a lot. I have Red Hat 7.2 as second computer both at work and at home, so I tend to switch a lot.

Linux almost never crashes on me, of course, but it is still beaten by win2k, that has, that I can recall, never actually crashed on me in the last 2-3 years (on lots of different computers). So I assume you have 98 or Me or something?

What I want to say with this is that if you can (and think it is worth it) get a copy of what I deem a real Windows, that might be good enough for you. Win2k has path completion (possible to put on tab like you are used to), and most all of the features one wants (cygwin adds the last few) - only faster. Yes, I mean it. Windows 2000 is lots faster than Gnome or KDE on the same computer, no matter what the application (I guess it is due to X being old, bloated and going via TCP/IP even locally or what it was...). And I don't really use the point and click interface in the way you seem to mean, just like I don't do point and click on linux, even though it is there. I use a few tools, like TextPad, Windows Commander and the command line, and that is about it. :)

That said, if one is more comfortable with a *NIX machine, then by all means go for it - it is still pure joy to work at those too.

What works best for me is to do stuff, mainly programming and surfing for facts etc, on the windows machine, then use/run the stuff on the *NIX machine or both. Never had any luck with dual booting, the machine always seems to be stuck in one of the modes anyways, but it might be a good-enough solution for the time being. :)

As for what distribution... well, I'm quite happy with Red Hat as such, but RPM blows goats. So next reinstall I'm thinking to try Debian to get apt-get-install and friends. :)

You have moved into a dark place.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  • Comment on Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice..

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice..
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jun 04, 2002 at 18:49 UTC
    I guess it is due to X being old, bloated and going via TCP/IP even locally or what it was...
    I had dinner once with Jim Gettys, who pointed out that they developed X11 for machines with a handful of megahertz and two megabytes of RAM. He had it running on his iPaq. I've personally had more trouble with (what appears to be) one application holding the single GDI lock on Windows 2000 while waiting for network data than I have with X applications. I also miss virtual workspaces on Windows, though I have found a decent free pager with edge flipping.
[reply]
      Ok, scratch bloated then. :)

      Actually, I do not have any facts backing me up on that one either, just a very unqualified guess. The fact I do have, and withstand, is that the x based window managers, for whatever reason, seems (which is what counts to the user) much slower and worse than MS windows (this case being w2k) at doing the approximate tasks, both simple moving around windows/redrawing and the apps themselves. I'd hate to break that into a contest though, because I do not want to scare anyone off from using linux, which has a lot of other advantages, and is steadily becoming better (faster computers also helps, just as it does for windows). I tried running a linux-only environment for a month or so, but I pretty soon reverted back to a mixed set. Best of both worlds... :)

      I haven't had the same problem (that I am aware of) that you mention, but I suppose it might depend on what you work with, etc.

      And virtual workspaces++ every day of the week - I don't really use them enough to be really effective, but that is one of the better things since sliced bread. And I do try. :)

      You have moved into a dark place.
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
[reply]
Re^2: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice..
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jun 05, 2002 at 10:15 UTC

    NT up to 3.51 was slower. Then they moved the GUI code into the kernel space and it picked up pace dramatically. I think I still prefer the GUI code in userland though and I can't say the speed bothers me. Window redraw on my X, particularly if I'm moving a widow in front of another, is visible (on Windows it's not), but not to any extent that I would consider it a hinderance or even slightly annoying.

    Besides, KDE and Gnome are just bloat IMO. I use just WindowMaker with no desktop environment and run just fine (and blazing fast). GUIs are overrated. :-)
    ____________
    Makeshifts last the longest.
[reply]

In Section Meditations