Raspbian just works so well with the Pi, so that's where my vote goes. However, Ubuntu is a close second and I think with some further optimization it would be fantastic. I guess it also depends on what you're doing with it.

I'm using UbuntuMate in a combination with a kaaiot platform (for device connectivity). The only one problem is that sometimes I need to restart my PI. My friends are sure that this is because of the 'heavy' ubuntu for the raspberry, can it be the reason?

Pre-compiled Pre-Existing apps will not work on the PI version of Windows IoT, the CPU is different and therefor the compiled code will not run

If the source is available and in say C# or the intermediate code then that's a different story and there is a chance it could be made to work, Windows 10 IoT is not a desktop app host, it is an Appliance App Host and has limitations.

I would imaging there is a good chance that Linux versions of the HAM apps are a plenty and would just need compiling using the Arm based compiler for the PI

Very interested in  Raspberry Pi 2  (and later) in conjunction with HAM RADIO.   most apps are now written for  windows (sadly)

but I am starting a movement to port or create ham radio apps for  raspbian or others  that can run on Pi.   i do understand  I0T

exists and i am curious if any ham radio operator has tried running  existing ham radio apps (that only work on windows) on I0T?

That is actually on my project list but for now... just getting software and hardware written and developed for the Pi and Linux.

for all those who do not know about  ham radio - we are a hardware driven group please check   www.arrl.org for more ham radio information..  many of the apps and devices we use must interact with the radios and hardware devices we use.  so please keep that in mind.   we do understand Linux  (X-windows) apps are not that popular with developers but there always modules and functions which have already been written. so please use what is already out there.

there are millions of ham radio operators all around the world.

Raspberry Pi's are the way to go....

33, 73

arm-developer; arm-developer

softwarevariations

I am in full agreement with you in this.  The reasons you have explained here, in addition to my previously stipulated ones is why I prefer Linux over any other OS.  I also began my work on computers in the '80s but I didn't touch a PC until the '90s.  Thank you for your statements.

I have seen the birth and growth of M$. That's how long I have been playing with computers. Starting around 1979 when Bill Gates ported CP/M-86 to IBM's new PC creation which was the start of Microsoft, I've seen M$ grow into what is today, an arrogant, Greedy, Bullying Mega-Corporation. I watched them go after and destroy a new upcoming and very promising Linux based company named Lindows. M$ saw the new competition and started burying them in a pile of lawsuits around the world over their company's copy-write of "Windows". This is a generic and widely used term that M$ took in front of 3 different judges before M$ finally got their copy-write. The U.S. courts threw out their claim against the name "Lindows"  but M$ finally got a European court to accept the lawsuit.

Do you remember when M$ tried to do this same thing to the Linux World Community by appropriating a company called Caldera because they held the patent on the original AT&T Unix which originated from the collaboration at U.C.Berkeley between the government and Bell Labs? Their claim was that there was proprietary code embedded in the Linux Kernel? Thanks RedHat, SUSE, and IBM for pooling together to create a $2 Million Dollar defense fund that backed the Bulldog off. Yes, I am prejudiced against M$ because I don't like bullies. I didn't like them growing up as a physically challenged kid and I don't like them now. But this is not why I don't care for Windows.

Remember when Apple first created the Macintosh, designed after the multitasking, Windowing Graphical OS that was developed for Xerox's systems, and when M$ in order to compete, developed what they called the Windows OS, and when Apple tried to sue M$ for patent infringement on a concept that they borrowed from Xerox? I believe that this is where M$ decided that the practice of burying competition in a sea of costly litigations was an acceptable practice.

The reason I migrated to Linux before the turn of the Millennium was the fact that Windows was getting too bloated with their own in house architecture, file structure, and the introduction of the Registry that was to replace the use of dot INI files that now has in itself become bloated and way to cryptic. There is no need for such balderdash. Before Linux, Unix was just an experiment coming out of Cal-State Berkeley and subsidized by the government. When I discovered Linux and played with it and got used to the file structure, I began to realize how great it was, an OS that managed to keep everything running well and very organized by enshrining everything in the file structure. No wonder that I can set up a server with CentOS and it just keeps running for years without having to reboot it every once in a while like you do with a M$ OS. This brings to mind, when I was working in broadcasting and the new digital age started to make it's way into our engineering systems, the new digital automation systems, and on air product servers were all based in a Windows Operating System. Although it seams that M$ is a lot more stable than it used to be, when something hiccuped or locked up completely, it was accepted practice to just reboot the server to get it back on line. To me, this is not acceptable in a mission critical environment. When I was with KCOP in Los Angeles, a Chris-Craft TV station, we had an old Unix type automation system. While working on it one day, I had to take it off line. I took a look at it's logs and I saw that it had been running for more than a year without any problems. If there was a problem with the software running on the system, you just restarted the troubled program without disturbing anything else running in the same server. This is also true with Linux. I don't think that M$ can boast of this. I run 2 servers out on the Internet. One is in St. Louis, and the other is in Canada. They both run CentOS-6 and I never have to reboot. If a process is miss-behaving, I just kill the process and restart it, no rebooting necessary.

My final thought on why M$ is still wielding the lion's share of the OS market is not whether any one OS is better than another, but just because they were first in the OS business for the emerging IBM PC and because all the popular software is written to run in Windows. The self-perpetuating cycle of Windows being the preferred OS to Write for that attracts the hardware manufacturers to offer their computers with Windows, and therefore because all computers on the market are running Windows, makes Windows the primary environment that software has to run with in order to sell that software. As far as software that is written to run in the corporate environment, it must run with Windows because of the Corporate paranoia that exists about committing to the unknown. To them. Linux is an unknown environment and they are familiar with M$. Corporations also believe in the great myth that a proprietary OS is better supported because of the company standing by it rather than an Open Source OS that has a whole world of support by true professionals (not hobbyists) that work with these Operating Systems because they love it and not just for the money. There is a corporate mentality also in play that if you throw enough money at a problem it will go away. I have seen this in my field. The corporate greed of not wanting to commit to a descent employee's wage is thrown out the window when it comes to paying a contractor inflated fees to fix a problem. Price is no problem when it comes to getting production back up and running. M$ is more than glad to take their money for support but it is you and I as consumers that ultimately pay for M$'s support in the prices charged for their products.

Having to reboot every week

For what it's worth, the word from our IT department when asked a similar question is that XP would be monthly, but Win7/8 greater then 1 year.

We have a number of machines that provide varying tasks (rather than a desktop machine), and we were looking to trigger an alarm when the uptime exceeded xxx hrs.

Now that's assumming the drivers and programs all play by the rules .... something that sadly doesn't always happen.

Preference is the key word, and also fit for purpose is another.

This is the same debate of PC v Mac.

Mark

Hi Ramon

Well done, You have this time articulated yourself excelently, explaining why you prefer Linux over Windows and many of your points are very valid. One thing that stands out well is your statement saying your "Prefer" Linux. That is the magic word to me as it is all about preference.

I do not agree with all you points though (And thats OK), for instance...

Having to reboot every week, this is just not true, I have several windows machines tht have not been re-booted for months, and as you said with Linux even, rebooting when updates are installed is common to both, 3rd party Drivers and other factors outside of potentially MS control could be the reason for some systems needing this "Scheduled Reboot"

Windows SWAP file can be turned off and I have in the past done this on machines where enough memory is available for the sulution to run. Like Linux it is recomended to have one but NOT manditory, SWAP file / Page file has a very valid and useful purpose, but really only comes into its own if you have many processes / programs running at the same time but where some may be idle for extended periods of time (+ a bunch of other reasons) and allows the OS to move the process out of RAM into the swap file and make the freed RAM available to another process, slower caching is also another usefull purpose for swap files and page files but thats a whole other conversation

so, your first response re Windows was very "Extreme and Relegious" and simply inplied a potentially un informed dislike for the company and its products, your second response comes across well informed with practical experiance and resulting in your preference to use Linux, this to me says that IF the reason is there you may choose an MS product, but the reason would need to be a good one

Thanks for taking the time to re-express your reasoning, I appreciate it as will many others who may still be trying to figure what their preference would be.

For me my preference depends on the solution I am putting together and how much time I have. For instance I have receintly worked on Major Heath Care related project (I was one of the senior architects) worth about $30M and this was 90+% Redhat Linux based with a few Windows machines due to product constraints in a few areas and it was a great solution, at home I regularly switch between Linux, Windows, OSX or other embeded systems based on what I am wanting to get across to my viewers on my YouTube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/c/thebreadboardca ). But dues to my skill set and what I have been primaraly required to work with most of my computer life, My Skills are best with Windows so this often becomes my preferenec where I have a choice

Peter

You're right about the cost difference between MS products and Linux.  The cost of something is important for someone who is experimenting and also for someone who is implementing in large scale.  So yes, one reason I prefer Linux over Windows is the cost.  However, that is not the only reason.  It is recommended that you reboot a windows computer a minimum of once a week, if you don't, you're bound to have trouble.  Linux doesn't have that frequent reboot requirement, it will keep working correctly for months without a restart.  Of course, you still need to reboot in order to apply kernel upgrades and such things.  In my experience, Linux has always been more reliable and stable than Windows and like you said, it uses less resources.  But it doesn't stop at using less resources, it also uses the available resources in a more efficient way.  Windows REQUIRES you to have a swap file and it will immediately start using it after boot.  You can run Linux without a swap file/partition, though it's not recommended, and when it has one, it won't use it until it needs to.

Another of my concerns with Windows is privacy.  Out of the box, Windows sends all kinds of information about you to microsoft, look it up, there are tools to REDUCE the amount of information your Windows machine shares with MS but without some major hacking (which may violate your MS EULA) you can't get rid of everything.  Linux, on the other hand does no such thing.  I have used MS-DOS from 5.0 to 6.22 and Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11 (Windows for workgroups), 95, 98, NT4.0, 2000, Server 2003, XP, Vista, 7 and 8.  So I have plenty of experience with MS products.  I have also used several versions of Unix, Linux and Android as well as CP/M and CBM BASIC (Way back in the '80s).  Through all that, Linux is my operating system of choice, more specifically, Ubuntu Linux 14.04.3 LTS without Unity but with LXDE instead.  I hope this answers your questions.

Oh I sooooo want one