Is switching to Linux worth it?

[jkmorse]

Folks,

Based on Juan's posts elsewhere, I am thinking of taking the plunge and converting my processing PC from Windows 8 to Linux.  Is the switch worth it, how hard is it and can someone recommend a good primer to guide me along the way?

Thanks,

Jim

[astropixel]

Jim. You will get a lot of opinions on switching to Linux. I use Linux exclusively. Question. How dependent are you on Windows. Many people find that Linux does not adequately meet their software needs. I can't say that is my experience. Windows can be run in Virtualbox on a Linux desktop and perform better than on a physical drive.

If you want stability and few viruses go Linux. Mint Linux is one of the best. PI runs very well in 64bit Linux.

[Andres.Pozo]

In my experience PixInsight works equally well in Linux than Win7-x64. PI is not the reason for choosing one OS or another.

[gerlos]

Imho, if you're inclined to learn and change your habits, it worths.

Pixinsight runs very well on linux, in my small experience runs better than windows, maybe because of better RAM and storage management from the kernel, compared to windows.

Just look around and try to choose the desktop environment (KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, Ubuntu Unity) you like the most. If you're unsure, try some of the most popular distros, such Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint or Fedora. They provide Live-CDs for you to evaluate the system (obviously they will run slower than "real" systems).
They also provide packages to install alternative desktop environments, so for example, if you've chosen Ubuntu, and later you want to use KDE Plasma, you just need to install the "kubuntu-desktop" package to do the switch without reinstalling (it will take a long time anyway, since it needs to download and replace a big number of packages, but you won't lose your data).

Anyway, you can find some obstacles: mostly with software that could not have an exact alternative for gnu/linux, or that requires you to re-learn again how to be productive. Most of the time, it's nothing impossible if you decide to stay.
Also virtualization (any distro provides Virtualbox) lets you run a full Windows environment in a window, so you can still use your old apps while you're looking for alternatives. Some apps will also run "almost natively" under linux using Wine!

I met bigger obstacles with astronomical capture, auto guiding and mount control software. I couldn't find anything equivalent to apps like Firecapture, IC Capture, Maxim DL (speaking of its CCD control tools), or phd guiding. The few alternatives available are still less convenient than windows counterparts.
I tried to run them in Virtualbox and configure hardware emulation so Virtualbox could manage them, but I found this solution unreliable.

So I still have a small Windows partition on my triple-boot macbook (I keep also OSX because I need it for some apps), that I use mostly to take shots with my TIS DMK21 camera.

Maybe next future these won't be problems any more: there are a lot of project that are moving from windows to linux as its user base grows, but in the meantime we need to find hibrid solutions.

[jkmorse]

Guys,

Thanks for all the insights (pun intended   ).  I run two separate laptop systems, one a Samsung with higher end graphics, 16gigs of RAM, 1TB storage and fast ICore7 processors, dedicated to image processing, primarily (soon exclusively) through PixInsight, and a separate, less pretty, more rugged, Lenovo "field" machine that I use for image capture using MaximDL, and other in-the-field critical software like SkyX, PemPro2.0, AstroPLanner 2.0 and other software to control my focuser, flat panel, etc.   Thats also the machine where I do all the mundane things like Windows Office and the like.  As such, I pretty much avoid the problems Gerlos kindly warned of.  Given that PI seems to run well on Linux, I may be in the perfect position to test it out on my processing PC.

Since it may provide some useful information to others considering the switch, I will report out to the forum on my trials and tribualtions.

Thanks again guys,

Jim

[naavis]

Windows can be run in Virtualbox on a Linux desktop and perform better than on a physical drive.

I'd like to know what you base this on. I find it hard to believe that you'd get better performance running Windows on a virtual machine instead of using the OS straight on the real hardware.

[gerlos]

Windows can be run in Virtualbox on a Linux desktop and perform better than on a physical drive.

I'd like to know what you base this on. I find it hard to believe that you'd get better performance running Windows on a virtual machine instead of using the OS straight on the real hardware.

My guess is this: sometimes Windows stars to use heavily your hard disk with no apparent reason, and IO wait makes things slower. In such situations, a Windows system on Virtualbox may perform better, since virtual disk writes and reads can be cached in RAM, and so seem to happen faster.
I've seen this behaviour sometimes.

Anyway, for CPU intensive tasks I didn't find any evident difference between virtualized and "real" OS, so I can't tell.

[gerlos]

Given that PI seems to run well on Linux, I may be in the perfect position to test it out on my processing PC.

Great! You are in the perfect situation to get the best of both worlds!

Good luck
gerlos