I haven’t worked the Windows way for half a year. Linux does all my work efficiently.

GNU/Linux is not something everyone wants to use. If you just need to deal with general business and play games, you don’t need to know this.

I’m not a big fan of free software, although I love it. This article is not intended to promote the free software movement, which I think is very good.

This article is also not intended to compare Linux and Windows kernel efficiency, file systems, and network services. I’m speaking as a user now, not as a developer, and our discussion is at the operational, application level. It is to tell the scientific workers and college students in universities who don’t know or understand UNIX that UNIX is more suitable for scientific research than Windows. Please understand how UNIX works and don’t use Windows standards to ask Linux. But to a scientific worker standards to demand themselves, armed with UNIX ideas.

I’m obviously opposed to Windows being promoted in universities, especially in science and engineering. I’m also against using Windows in computer education for kids. Because Windows is technically, economically and ideologically incompatible with our goal of cultivating high-tech talent. The popularity of Windows is a relic of history, and the grandpas are certainly beyond remedy, but we should not let the next generation continue to go astray.

UNIX is not the preserve of computer experts

When I suggest Linux to people who are not computer science majors, a lot of people say, “UNIX is for computer science people, we don’t understand.” “UNIX is for boys, not us girls.”

But most scientists and engineers around the world use UNIX almost exclusively as their computer tool. Because it’s simple, reliable, stable, powerful and fun. Sometimes even UNIX is the only option.

You say, “If we all use UNIX, what are you computer science majors doing with it?” I’m glad to tell you that there are a number of people in the computer science profession who provide you with such powerful and convenient computer tools. What good is a tool they make if only they know how to use it?

Understand GNU/Linux don’t apply Windows standards to Linux.

Since the term GNU/Linux is too long, “Linux” means GNU/Linux “unless specified below.

No one needs me to tell you what Linux is these days, do they? If you think “Linux is just like DOS, “ask the Linux user next to you, what is Linux?

So why am I writing an article like this? Because I see a lot of people who don’t understand Linux and UNIX, even though they use it, but sometimes they ask, “Why can’t Linux be like Windows?” ?” “Redhat Linux can’t mount NTFS partition!” “, “How to defragment a hard drive under Linux?” “, “When will OpenOffice be fully compatible with Word files? “, “What can Windows do now that Linux can’t?” …

They have 40 gigabytes of hard drives, but only 2 gigabytes for Linux, and sometimes complain about “how this thing takes up so much hard drive!” It seems Windows should take up most of the hard drive. They keep their important data in Windows partitions and don’t seem to trust Linux. They are always on the lookout for fancy, good-looking GUI programs and don’t give a damn about anything on the command line. They are very interested in Drag&Drop, menu configuration, automatic upgrade. If they find a Linux program that looks like a Windows program, they’ll be happy and say, “Ha, ha! Linux can also be… !” If Linux beats Windows in some kind of test, they jump for joy. They even use Wine to run Windows programs when they can’t solve problems with Linux. Sometimes you just have to go back to Windows, or save yourself the trouble of installing VMWare under Windows and playing with virtual Linux.

If you appeared above the situation, that your mind was affected by some Windows subtle and misleading. You don’t understand the UNIX ideas that are inherent in Linux. You support Linux, you love Linux, you’re happy with it, and that’s great. All you need to understand now is this: Linux was never a toy, it was the descendant of the genius UNIX. UNIX, the greatest invention since the transistor, was better designed than Windows from day one.

You have to understand what is called “design”, a bad design is not to be patched up later can become better, and an excellent design, not only can be unchanged to respond to all changes, but also can affect the future. A great design with a great implementation is a great invention. Linux is one such brilliant invention. Linux doesn’t need to catch up with Windows or crush Microsoft. Its ultimate goal is to change the world of computing, to give people freedom, to give people fun and convenience.

Unix is simple, and you don’t need to be a genius to understand that simplicity.

Dennis Ritchie, the creator of UNIX, said: “Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.” I don’t think so. When you don’t understand something, try to solve it the UNIX way, not the Windows way. Now THAT I appreciate the ideas and benefits of UNIX, I can work several times more efficiently than Windows. Because I believe in the belief that “anything Windows can do, Linux can do, and do it better.”

The beginning of this section should read: “Unix is simple. You don’t need to be a genius or a computer expert. But in a world that spurns Windows misconceptions, you need faith and courage to understand its simplicity.” I’ll tell you what I understand. The first thing you need to know is that Microsoft has no place in international science.

2. Microsoft’s position

You’ve probably heard how bad Microsoft’s reputation is in European and American universities, especially in computer science departments. I know MIT professors, Stanford professors, Bell LABS experts, and even a high school computer science teacher in a small European country who won’t even mention Microsoft’s name. In their eyes, Microsoft is just a small company with no real technology, relying on marketing and monopoly in underdeveloped countries. “Small” does not mean it has fewer people or money, but less advanced technology.

I wrote an algorithm demonstration program with Wang Yi last time. The algorithm was a genius invention of Steven Fortune, a scientist at Bell LABS. In order to make the program usable by most people around us, we chose VC+MFC as the platform. When I was analyzing the algorithm, Fortune encouraged me warmly, sent me a document, and wrote back many times patiently explaining many details to me. But after I sent Fortune the sample, he wrote back, “I’m sorry. I don’t have MFC on my machine.” Nice words, but I can already sense his disdain for Windows. Then I statically compiled MFC into the program and sent it to him, and he never wrote back. He was obviously not despising me, but was in real trouble.

You get a sense of how the scientist feels about Microsoft and Windows? Not revulsion, but Windows is not in his heart! Microsoft is not growing in high tech, so how can it survive? Go to a developing country where people don’t know anything about computers, and I might even get into the computer science department at university. I give them software, I donate money for buildings, I pay for Turing prize winners to speak, to make them think we’re all scientists!

Now, in universities all over the country, including Tsinghua university, almost everyone has to install pirated Win2000 and Office XP on their machines. The course selection system of the school cannot be browsed correctly without IE. The paper is edited by Word, and the presentation is made by PPT. Even the 863 project is written with VC program. I read a newspaper a long time ago that said, “Why doesn’t Microsoft crack down on piracy?” ‘Far from cracking down on piracy in China, Microsoft has a tendency to let it go,’ the article said. Put long line hanging big fish, “later I want you double to return me!” Indeed, its purpose is almost fulfilled.

3. Computer education in China under the shadow of Windows

To be ashamed, Bill Gates was my idol a long time ago… //blush

In China, Bill Gates is revered by many as a “young computer genius”, and some even make a gesture of “clenching his fist to the sky” at the mention of his name. A lot of people talk about Microsoft’s “new technology” and “high tech” with great rapidity. All kinds of “VC programming bible “, “in-depth understanding of Visual C++” books, in the first few pages will appear very disgusting words,” out of the chaos, an epoch-making wizard, Windows 1.0, was born…”

Microsoft software is being stolen by so many people, so how do people use these pirated programs? First look at the computer training class, teaching is some DOS command, typing, Windows basic operation, Word document processing, PowerPoint, advanced class may have Excel, Access… To participate in a variety of Microsoft certification examinations, MCSE, MSDE people in an endless stream. Exam tutoring classes posted “280 yuan, pass the exam until “and so on. Exam reference materials are even more expensive, and some computer bookstores have two entire shelves of “Microsoft Press” stuff. I have a classmate to take the certification exam, each exam cost 200 yuan. And you can take the test again, and you have to pay. He later told me with delight that, look at me, spent XXXX(a four-digit number) yuan to pass the Microsoft certification, and got a certificate signed by Bill Gates and the value of 6000 yuan Windows XP internal distribution.

“Computers start with babies.” Let’s see what they learn. When most parents buy a computer for their children, they first install a pirated version of Windows and then buy pirated games to play. If any kid can program in Delphi, that’s great. Newspaper reporters, television stations vie to report, said, so-and-so school junior high school so-and-so, in others are still playing computer games this “primary stage” when Delphi has written procedures. The camera also zeroed in on Bill Gates’ head in the frame above his monitor!

When I first entered the computer science department in university, I didn’t know what an operating system was, because I had only used China Learning Machine before. See the new students are talking about “Windows 95”, “VC”… I feel like I’m decades behind, like I’m a native, and I can’t talk to them. Very not easy to find a more familiar students asked: “you talk about every day of the plague 95 is what ah?” A: “Win95 is an operating system, in the same category as DOS.” “What is DORA?” “You don’t even know what a DOS is? Get out of the computer science department.” VC programming was not taught at school, of course, but Pascal’s teacher once said, “Hey, our school is really backward. Now everyone else is using C, C++, even VC, and we’re still talking about Pascal. I don’t know when I’ll have the VC class. You go out also want to use VC, had to self-study.” Therefore, some students are holding a very heavy “Windows programming “and other books in class, not listening to the class at all. “The optimization of the code is endless”, “Hungarian nomenclature is a great invention”… This is the situation in computer science departments in many Chinese universities.

Sense of ignorance? This is no accident, but Microsoft has been foreshadowing this for a long time. It’s going to make it sacred for the ignorant, and it’s going to make UNIX, Xwindow people, when they say UNIX is good, Xwindow is good, they’re going to be surrounded by people saying: “This Windows can do it,” “You’re biased against Windows,” “Microsoft is mainstream,” “How dare you look down on Win2K?” , “.NET is the trend of the world “, “After all, Microsoft is new technology”, “money is technology”… Even after losing the battle, he still said, “Windows isn’t very good, but it’s easy to use. “”Windows is for ordinary people. quot; “, “Won’t it be easy for Microsoft to surpass UNIX in the future with all that money?” …

4. Computer education in developed countries

I got to know a Dane when I asked a question about The Scheme language on USENET some time ago. He solved all my problems and suggested that I read some “esoteric” books on programming language syntax and grammars. He told me that there were many websites where I could learn LISP, Scheme, artificial intelligence and algorithms. He asked me to read Jonathan Rees’s paper “Syntactic Closures.” He also sent me a packed copy of MIT’s “How to Design Programs”. He says he runs Linux on his PC, uses Emacs to edit and run Scheme programs. His knowledge and interest in Emacs is amazing. His graduation project after college was a Scheme interpreter. It’s too much for me.

He was so diligent that he gave detailed answers to every question I asked. I sometimes feel too detailed, why so patient ah? I think he was my high school teacher. What was he like? I inquired curiously about him. It turned out that he was a computer teacher at an ordinary Danish high school.

He said he taught programming and algorithms in high school, computer language grammar. With Scheme, he says, his students stop worrying about the language itself, such as memory leaks, and focus on the problems and algorithms themselves. It is beneficial to cultivate students’ ability to solve problems, especially the ability to solve mathematical problems with computers.

Oh my god! Why are there so many mathematicians, geometers in Europe? Look what other people value! If our computer education continues like this, it will only go further and further along the detour!

The wishful thinking of Microsoft and its friends

Here’s how Microsoft’s revenue came about. First, the Windows 98 series of operating systems cost more than $100 each, and nearly the same price each time you upgrade. Windows NT is several times more expensive, and there’s a limit to the number of users, 5 users, 10 users… In the future, if you want to increase the number of users, you have to pay proportionately.

Does the operating system that you paid so much for work? It doesn’t even come with a compression program! The first thing you usually do when you install Windows is download A WinZip “for $29”. Windows can get a virus. Buy a Norton AntiVirus now for $70. What about hackers? Get another Norton Internet Security, $100. Systems need to be optimized, disks need to be deorganized, and buying Norton System Works is your best solution for $100.

But you still can’t get down to business! You want a Word, PowerPoint? Get a set of Office XP and buy it together for a lower price: $459.90.

Those programs don’t work! How to set up those menus? What functions do they have? I can’t learn from “Help.” Check out this book. I recommend the “Special Edition Using Microsoft Office XP”, which is inexpensive at $27.99. The book is mostly screen-grabs, but it’s worth buying a used copy for $17.85.

If you were just a secretary, that would be fine. But you have higher aspirations. You want to be a Windows programmer. Buy a Visual Studio.NET first, otherwise how to compile the program. At $494.95.

Don’t you have to sign up for MSDN or something to keep up with Microsoft and the world? It’s a little more expensive, but it’s worth it, $2,799.

Well, you are now an upper class, white-collar person. You can live like this now, free and safe.

6. Why oppose Windows

Many people say that Windows should not be completely rejected, Windows also has its advantages. Microsoft should not be blamed.

right Windows is easy to operate and suitable for ordinary users. If Microsoft were to position itself in the position of P&G, Philips, it would be able to provide thoughtful, sophisticated, affordable services to our people. Then I must like it very much. But from above a variety of circumstances explain, Microsoft is an ambitious international monopoly organization! None of its products is without problems: Windows is unstable and prone to viruses, and Microsoft doesn’t give away free anti-virus software. I want you to spend money on my friend Symantec’s antivirus software, but you have fallen into my trap. This is not after-sales service ah!

When you buy a Microsoft program and install it, there is usually an agreement that says, “Microsoft is not responsible for data corruption or loss caused by a Microsoft program.” I think a lot of people think that’s unreasonable and don’t want to press “I accept”. However, you have bought the software and spent all your money. Now, as soon as you press “I Decline “, the installation program will exit immediately. You’re forced to click “I accept”! Isn’t this an unequal treaty?

I’ve seen several of my friends’ documents corrupted by Microsoft Word, whether it was a 30-page paper that took 10 days to edit, or a resume that was painstakingly written, and that cost the friend a job at P&G that she wanted. The night before he was supposed to send in his resume, and in that instant… I don’t know if he thought of filing a complaint against Microsoft while he was crying, but we’re using pirated versions and you clicked “I Accept.”

Microsoft’s dominance of the PC market, the creation of “Microsoft standards” that do not meet international standards, unfairly suppressing other companies’ software, has long been a problem at the U.S. Justice Department. He even put code in Windows that could leak user information over the network, so much so that it was banned by the Australian government when it first came to Australia.

Some people say: “After all, Microsoft made a history and made the IT industry today.” But if it weren’t for Microsoft, we’d be using very stable, very reliable, very convenient, very “dumb” software today! Microsoft is the culprit holding back the progress of information technology.

The way Microsoft programs work (mind you, I’m only talking about how they work, the virus thing is not included) is really good for the average home, for surfing the Web, emailing, and playing games. But Microsoft is trying to present itself as something of a “high-tech” company, setting up “research institutes” around the world, giving away Windows products unsuitable for scientific research in university computer departments, even paying Turing award winners to come to China to talk about “computing in the 21st century” and promoting its.NET technology at conferences. Must think that others are scientific, they are leading the world’s high-tech. But? There’s nothing high-tech about it. Europe, THE United States, which key departments are using Microsoft stuff? NASA? DOE? CERN? If you think about it carefully, what is the significance of Microsoft’s programs for human beings?

What can Windows do that Linux can’t? —

“What Windows can do that Linux can’t do is do what doesn’t need to be done.”

A friend of mine would sometimes ask me if I had not used Windows for half a year, “You only use Linux. Have you found anything Windows can do that Linux can’t?” —

I replied, “What Windows can do that Linux can’t do is what you don’t need to do.”

Linux can do all the good things Windows can do

There are certain features that we need in Windows, and Linux developers and users need them, and they will do it in a much better way than Windows. Since most scientists and engineers use Linux or some kind of commercial UNIX, almost all commercial science and engineering programs, such as Matlab, Mathematica, AutoCAD, Candence, Synopsys, Avant! The…… All have UNIX versions (including Linux) and then consider porting to Windows, or not porting to Windows at all, because Windows machines generally don’t have enough power to run such programs. Don’t think PSpice is just for Windows. HSpice in UNIX is much better and runs on mainframes. They’re not free, of course, but they’re worth the price.

But there are some things on Windows that are not quite similar on Linux, or you can find a lot of things that are similar, but each one of them is much worse than the one on Windows, so there are two possibilities:

There is an entirely similar program, but because it doesn’t look pretty at first glance, you ignore it. Other programs, while beautiful to look at, were written by beginners. Now due to the birth of Gtk, Qt, Linux under the development of graphical interface procedures is extremely simple, many middle school students and even primary school students can readily make up some beautiful useless procedures. If you look for programs like this all day long, you’ll never find one you’re happy with. Of course, there are great programs that use Gtk and Qt, such as GVIM, which uses Gtk as a graphical interface, and I know of Synopsys, where some programs use Qt.

I’ve made the mistake of judging everything by what it looks like. As a result, EXCELLENT FVWM, LFTP, Mutt and WGET were all ignored by me. I was so ashamed when I got them back, they’re all my friends now. I saw FVWM for the first time and thought it was just a thick, ugly border thing. But now, my classmates look at FVWM and say, “Wow! It’s beautiful.”

There is an entirely different way to achieve the same end, even better.

Many people care about Open Office, Star Office, AbiWord,… They look forward to the day when a Linux program will be fully compatible with opening a complex doc document. But you never will. Why is that? Because Microsoft, in order to dominate the market, will certainly not make other systems’ programs fully compatible with its document format. It’s bound to keep changing the internal structure of doc documents, hiding secrets, and making other companies’ programs always have problems opening doc documents, so you have to buy Microsoft Office and Windows.

You have to think about it, there are so many highly intelligent university professors, scientists, students who use Linux or some other type of UNIX, and they don’t have Word, what are they going to do with documents? After all these years without a program like Open Office, didn’t people have a way to write documents?

Apparently not. You look at the high-level academic journals, the papers, the university professors’ web pages, the beautiful slides, what are they made of? It turns out that UNIX users already have handy things like Troff, LaTeX, and SGML for handling documents, all of which are far superior to Word. Word has been so conspicuously ignored by the bigwigs that no one has wanted to develop a Similar program for Linux for a long time, unless some company wanted to steal Microsoft’s job.

The reason many people keep Windows on their hard drives is to use Word and PowerPoint. I once saw a professor who had nothing but PowerPoint on his Windows laptop. During a demonstration one day, he pointed to the jumbled characters and said, “Sorry, it’s a formula… Why is it always like this…” There are hundreds of times more things to make slides than PowerPoint, and you can make world-class papers and slides in the simplest way possible. You can look at my TeX page later and see why I can leave Windows altogether.

Linux can never do all the useless things Windows can do

7. Computer games

Some people say that you can’t play all the games available on Windows on Linux. Sure, Linux does have a handful of games, such as Quake. But it has no Counter Strike, no Star Craft…

It’s not that computer games shouldn’t be played, but enough should be enough. A computer is a tool to deal with things, to help you learn, to solve problems, not a toy! Indulging in computer games all day, instead of going out to feel the outside world, you will become more and more cold, less and less human. You’re getting further and further away from the real world.

You can kill in CS, you can explore in Tomb Raider, you can even skateboard in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skaters… But It’s not real! Although you have great “counter-terrorism skills”, you are timid when confronted with gangsters. Although you can control Laura’s quick hand, why do you always get stolen when you play basketball? You can easily make a “360 kickflip to Hangten Grind to fakie” in THPS, but you can’t ollie when you step on your own skateboard!

After all, it’s ok if you play computer games once in a while. But there are far better ways to play than Windows + PC. Sony’s PlayStation2, SEGA’s DreamCast, Nintendo’s N64, Namco’s arcade… Each one is better than a Windows game, and each one has such high 3D performance that Pentium4, Itanium + GForce4 can’t even compete with them!

How do Linux users have time to play games on their machines when they care about solving the world’s key problems? They get their work done efficiently with Linux every day and go out in the sun to enjoy nature. To play games is also to play some similar push boxes, such as the snake intelligence games. So, you know why there are almost no games on Linux?

8.” Defragment your hard drive to optimize your system”

This is a very interesting topic, second only to viruses. I believe that many Windows users have the experience of sorting out hard disks. For many Windows users, it seems like a no-brainer that your hard drive will fragment and slow down as you use it and need a program to defragment it without doing anything else while you defragment it.

Have I watched with interest as Norton Defrag sorted, adjusted, graphically displayed my hard drive, bit by bit, and reported? quot; 100% free of debris. Your hard drive is now in tip-top shape.” I realize now how naive I was.

Linux and UNIX users never seem to have the term “defragment”? Do you think that’s weird? If that sounds strange to you, then your mind is somehow locked in Microsoft junk. You need to understand that many UNIX mainframes have to be running 24 hours a day, 365 and a quarter days a year, and it’s not going to work if you have to declutter your hard drive once a week and you can barely do anything while defragging!

Linux machines don’t declutter their hard drives at all, which is why you don’t see Linux users declutter their hard drives. Linux file system is much more sophisticated than Windows FAT, FAT32, NTFS file system, they can not only set permissions on files, the implementation of complete protection, and can “more use more neat”, “more use fragmentation less”! You should keep most of your files in a Linux partition, not a Windows partition, as it is much more reliable than a Windows partition.

The funny thing is that there are lots of Norton System Doctor, Windows Optimizer, And Super Bunny Registry magic programs, and they’re expensive. It seems that an operating system is supposed to have so many problems that it needs other vendors to make programs to “optimize” it, and in order to optimize it, you have to pay! Linux doesn’t have any of these issues, so no optimization is required. The Linux kernel itself is highly optimized.

9.IDE

Some people are complaining about why Linux doesn’t have a good IDE development environment. Linux now has some ides, but there are always problems. Are you looking for a VC-like development environment for Linux one day? Do you find yourself falling into a trap that Microsoft has set for you? Why do you have to use an IDE? You say: “Ides are fast to develop, easy to debug, suitable for large applications…” That means Microsoft’s program in your brain has been more deeply rooted, you need to sober up, see me to tell you.

Good UNIX programmers don’t use ides. Ides have always been for beginner Windows programmers.

If you look at the large UNIX programs, including the Linux kernel, various network service programs, Xwindow programs, which ones are made by the IDE? None of the EDA programs in our lab were written by an IDE, and I know Candence, Synopsys, and Mentor’s high-performance GRAPHICAL interface EDA programs were written by an IDE. Believe it or not, the People at Microsoft write Windows itself without an IDE at all. The favorite editor of Microsoft’s internal programmers is actually VIM, and the Microsoft programmers who use VIM deserve credit for donating more than $1,000 to poor children in Uganda last time.

There was a magazine interview with some well-known Linux kernel programmers. Linus and none of them used ides. Some used VIM, some used Emacs, and Linus said “GNU Emacs is evil”. But he was using MicroEmacs, which has the same key-binding functionality as Emacs. Everyone uses an editor to edit the program file, and then uses an automatic tool like make to call the GCC compiler to complete the compilation. Even advanced Windows programmers don’t use the IDE. They can compile their own programs by calling CL, nmake, from the command line. Although there are few such Windows programmers, they are the most knowledgeable Windows programmers.

Why don’t UNIX programmers use ides? Understand this and you will understand the design philosophy of UNIX. First, an IDE integrates editors, compilers, assemblers, debuggers, trackers… The compiler is no match for GCC, the assembler is no match for AS, the debugger is no match for GDB, DDD, and the tracker is no match for Strace, ltrace, truss. What you get is an integrated set of moronic programs. If you don’t like what the debugger does, you’ll have to switch to another IDE, but the hotkeys, menus, editor functions, buttons… It’s very different from the old one. You have to spend a lot of time getting familiar with the new environment, rather than keeping some of the old things.

Under UNIX, things are different. You can use your favorite VIM editing program, you can call GNU make in VIM, make can call GCC, ld… Make error messages can be captured by VIM, which helps you locate them in the source program. If you like ICC, you can make make use ICC instead of GCC. If you have trouble with GDB tracking variables, you can use DDD to show the relationships between various data structures. You can also call GDB from Emacs so that the source code is displayed synchronously. And VIM and Emacs can edit many other things, such as letters, LaTeX documents, HTML, configuration files… You don’t have to find another editor to do the chores. Many programs such as Mutt and TIN can use VIM internally, which makes it more convenient. In fact, make helps you a lot in other ways. I maintain every one of my larger LaTeX documents using make.

Linux can do all the sophisticated things Windows can’t

Of course there are a lot of things that are proprietary to Linux/UNIX. Since Windows can only be installed on A PC, it seems that there was an Alpha that could use Windows NT before, but no one did. PC power is very low, like us programming to deal with NP-hard problems, Windows machines are obviously not fast enough, and sometimes a problem count for days or even weeks, Windows machines are known to “crash”, how can we rest assured? So almost all scientific computing programs, EDA programs, high performance image processing programs are not Windows. They sometimes port some to Windows, but often reduce the power of those programs. You’ve compared the Windows version of Mathematica to

What’s the difference in Linux?

The largest parallel computer IBM made had more than 8,000 processors. Windows couldn’t possibly manage that many processors. What operating system did it use? The answer is Linux.

The 3d animation in the Titanic movie is so detailed and realistic that a Windows machine can make it? I can’t. That’s what Linux machines do, too.

The CAAC uses virtual reality training equipment to train ground personnel, but Windows cannot do anything about it. Those are commercial IRIX machines.

UNIX was the first system to support the TCP/IP networking protocol. It has many web services that can cooperate with each other, which have been used and revised for many years and have reached a relatively perfect level. As recently as 1997, Microsoft’s Bill Gates was saying: “The Internet has no future.” Microsoft’s “foresight” should have been seen, it later added the network service IIS vulnerabilities, so that the Ministry of Public Security has repeatedly issued alerts, we have also seen.

As you can see, Windows does nothing useful better than UNIX.

Windows can’t do anything useful that Linux can’t do

Of course Linux is not a panacea. There are things it can’t do, and there are things a computer can’t do. But Windows certainly can’t do anything Linux can’t do. These are the things that we need to explore and work on. Linux is sure to be your companion as you explore.

Don’t cover up Linux and Xwindow! Don’t treat our users like idiots.

What? You knew Windows was crap? Oh! Why didn’t you say so?! I have to talk so much. Hey hey.

“Good. You know Windows is crap, what are you using now? quot;

“Linux + Xwindow”

“So let me ask you, what does Xwindow look like?”

“Isn’t it just like Windows? Except the ‘Start’ button is square, and instead of a Windows logo, it has a foot on it. Click and there is a beautiful Chinese menu. I love it!”

“Do you know what a root window is?”

“No. Never heard of it?”

“The root window is the largest window that covers the entire screen.”

“There’s no window! I didn’t see it.”

Did you see the problem? These Linux users claim to be using Linux and Xwindow, but they know next to nothing about Linux and Xwindow. Many people use Xwindow for so long that they don’t know what the root window is. They don’t know that the button is also a window. They don’t know how the window manager is related to other programs. quot; Class name”, “Resource name” is something. They also don’t know what.xdefaults is for. In particular, many of them don’t know how to name fonts for Xwindow, what fontset is, or how to install a new font.

They are confused by the layer upon layer of packaging on top of Linux, and they wait for graphical tools to help with everything. Linux, they think, is just as much trouble as Windows. They knew that the Linux kernel was good, but they didn’t sense the inherent operational sophistication of Linux and Xwindow, and they dropped Linux entirely soon after. Have you noticed that the best way to retain users is to make them understand the operational sophistication of UNIX and Xwindow? No matter how good the kernel is, users won’t care if they don’t experience ease and efficiency.

But trying to attract users by copying Windows will always fail. Because if Linux mimics Windows’ inefficient ways, Linux’s “inefficient ways” will never be as good as Windows’ inefficient ways. Then the user will say, “This Linux, there’s nothing like Windows.”

Linux inherently inherits UNIX’s efficient way of working, so why do we cover it up? Why do we only tell users how to use KDE’s menu? Why can’t we just tell the user in the first section what the X Server is, what the X Client is, what the Window Manager is, and what the root Window is like in the early X Window books? The second chapter tells the user what properties the window has, what is className, resource name, hint, how to use.xdefaults, XRDB…

Here AGAIN, I have to say that Linux publishers and book writers have packaged Linux and Xwindow without basically telling users how Xwindow works. Many books are taught at the level of Gnome, KDE’s menu manipulation, and are “flourishing” the Linux book market by grabbing lots of graphics.

Many people now regard the ability to write a beautiful program using someone else’s library as a symbol of their programming skills. In this? quot; If you were writing documents in Troff and LaTeX, if you were editing your own HTML in VIM, if you were writing your own email in Mutt, if you were debugging your GDB in text mode, if you were writing in Xlib, if you were writing USENET on Tin, You’re still writing makefiles yourself, you’re still writing machine code, you’re still playing character mode adventure games like Clossal Cave, you’re a dinosaur.

This is wrong. Although you are a strong Linux supporter, your mind is Windows mind. You think that the GUI, the menu, the button will solve everything, will give you efficiency and convenience. You still haven’t been able to get rid of the subtle stuff that Microsoft has given you. You can’t live without Windows. Sooner or later, you’ll get rid of Linux.

10.GUI vs. CLI

Be a determined two-faced.

Is everyone excited to see this title? Both schools of prawns could attack me:

GUI pie user: “Wow! I see you’re a CLI guy. How about writing your own Makefile? With what Mutt?”

CLI send user: “cut ~ you still use X! Good guys don’t use X. You’re from the GUI side.”

Poor me: “555 ~ ~ you don’t want me ~ ~ GUI and CLI are so incompatible?”

There are many more such schools in the computer world. The feature is the CLI and GUI. Command LIne enthusiasts claim never to use X. Last time I was in the lab, I saw a student log in to Sun machine with a SecureCRT and then use a Vanilla VI editing program. I suggested him to start a GVIM to display it on Exceed, which can be highlighted with syntax. But he firmly disagreed, saying, “A good player doesn’t use X. How can I use X if I’m on a slow Internet connection? And a lot of servers don’t have X installed.”

But the Internet speed in our lab is very fast. Windows machines have Exceed, and Sun machines have a full set of X clients including GVIM. He said he was a big fan of the CLI, but he was using Windows, and he later opened several SecureCRT, entering addresses, user names and passwords at a time from the text box, selecting “SSH2” from the drop-down menu, and then hitting “Connnect.” He continues to boast that SecureCRT is “the most popular login method voted by webmasters.” God, SecureCRT itself is a GUI and he doesn’t understand the benefits of Xwindow.

You call me GUI? I rarely work on console. But I’m familiar with bash, VIM, and I can make bash work the way I want it to. I can use Mutt to send and receive email in RXVT. I often have a dozen RXVTS of different sizes stacked on every desktop. I used VIM to edit LaTeX. I write my own makefiles to maintain LaTeX documents. I sometimes use an MPG321 for mp3 players. I used my own Expect script on the BBS. All right, cli-sent friends can take me as an ally

Are you calling me a CLI dinosaur? My FVWM is configured to “write”, I just draw an “R” to start RXVT, I draw a “U” to start GVIM… I use GVIM syntax to highlight programs, I use Mozilla to browse the web… I think the Guis think I’m their friend now

All right. CLI friends, as much as I love the command line, I sometimes do it by drawing left and right on the screen:

Module FvwmConsole -terminal rxvt -geometry 45×5-0+0 -bg gold -fg midnightblue -fn “-adobe-courier-medium-r-–-14-–––––-*”

Are you trying to banish me now?

Friend of the GUI school, although I love Windows. But I can type in FvwmConsole:

11.All (rxvt) MoveToDesk

Move all of my RXVT to the desktop I’m currently working on.” This fellow, how quick to defect!”

UNIX and Xwindow are both industry standards. They have been used flexibly since the day they were designed, and programs, both GUI and command line, can work together. UNIX and X are one and the same, why so extreme, either/or? Can you see the blurred line between GUI and CLI from my behavior above? I’m a two-faced man.

UNIX is simple —

“I believe simple is best. If it’s too complicated, I can’t understand it.” -Seymour Cray

Many people who use Linux for the first time will be surprised to find that Linux programs do not. quot; “Install” will run, copy the program to any directory can be used, rather than necessarily occupy the space of your first partition. The program Settings are simply text files. You don’t need a “registry modifier” to change the system Settings. It’s called simple, but simple is beautiful. Although this is just a superficial glimpse into the simplicity of UNIX, you already get a taste of something.

But simple doesn’t mean weak, doesn’t mean backward. On the contrary, simplicity means strength, means vitality.

I won’t go into what I understand to be “UNIX simplicity “, because this is something you have to experience for yourself.

12.UNIX is timeless

Someone said, “Plan9 will replace UNIX, Mach will replace the Linux kernel.”

But if you are a person who has experienced UNIX thoroughly, you will know that the idea of UNIX is eternal, and whether or not Plan9 replaces UNIX, the soul of UNIX will emerge in Plan9.

I wrote a Linux kernel and a Windows VxD driver for the same device. When writing Linux drivers, I was struck by the perfect consistency and foresight of UNIX design. UNIX uses the same interface of read(), write() system calls to different objects: normal files, device files, pipes, pipe files, sockets… Unified read and write operations are performed. I didn’t need to write a test application to test my device driver, because cat, cp, and DD use the same read(), write(), and the application sees no difference between a device and a regular file. In the days before Smalltalk and C++, UNIX designers had adopted what they called an “object-oriented approach.” Yes, C can also be object oriented.

The fact that UNIX system calls have not changed much in decades is not a sign of stubbornness or lack of progress, but rather a sign of UNIX foresight! This is similar to the TeX program unchanged for decades. These are the real eternal master pieces! You should change all software required from 0.1, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0… , 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP… The idea of escalation.

Windows, on the other hand, began as a graphical wrapper on top of DOS. Later, in order to accommodate the previous bad design, had to add a lot of redundant. I write VxD driver on the deep experience, Windows 95 program to the device operation only with DeviceIoControl, I had to write two applications to test the device driver. The inconsistencies and secrecy of the Windows kernel drive me crazy. But Windows WDM drivers now have ReadFile, WriteFile… What does that mean? That means Windows is learning from UNIX, or maybe some UNIX designer worked a few days at Microsoft and threw in some UNIX stuff. It’s not going to work. Windows was badly designed from the start, and the baggage of its history is so heavy, what’s the point of tinkering? It will always be left behind by UNIX!

UNIX is powerful

Let smart people do whatever they want.

One of the things about UNIX is that it’s very flexible, and Xwindow has that flexibility. Where is this flexibility?

UNIX programs tend to have a lot of parameters, and whether you’re using them or not, someone needs some. Much of their behavior can be changed using configuration files. For GNU bash, the default command line input is usually Emacs, but as long as I edit an.inputrc file, I can change it to VI input, and I can bind key sequences to certain operations myself. I can use Shopt to set up many of its features, such as whether it does wildcard expansion, whether it can CD a variable as if it were a directory, whether it can automatically correct some obvious directory name typos…

UNIX programming is designed to provide users with “mechanisms” that do not restrict them from making “policies.” This is an important respect for the user.

Let’s look at Xwindow. Xwindow is an excellent design that separates the display server from the client. A display can show the program on this machine, also can show the X program on other machines, and they all obey the unified command of your window manager, they can easily transmit clipboard data, various events… For example, sometimes my XFree86 will have XTerm on four different machines, GVIM on two different machines… They are all under the command of FVWM on the local aircraft.

Xwindow programs have many, many command line arguments and resource arguments. You can set all the colors, fonts, sizes on the command line or in.xdefaults files… And if you use XRDB to import.xdefaults into the root window, the same programs that are not configured on other machines will show up on your machine with the same appearance rules.

The Windows of Xwindow have properties, which are shared data (atoms) that you can define yourself. Because of these properties, Xwindow has a very strong vitality. There was no unified protocol between X’s window manager and other clients, but then came the ICCCM(Inter-client Communication Specification), which was defined through property. Now someone has defined a set of “EWM Hints” that enable Xwindow to have certain Windows features, such as a toolbar program that tells the window manager: “I’m taking up 24 pixels below this screen. Don’t go beyond that when you maximize your program.”

A powerful window manager such as FVWM, when prompted, may or may not say yes to the toolbar application. Who has the power to choose? Users, of course!

Do you think some Windows programs often pop up a window asking you to select “Yes or No”? It won’t go down until you click on it. Do you feel that your program is violating your dignity? How can you, a human being, an intelligent creature, be treated this way by a program?

Another is that many Windows programs treat people like idiots, while this is a “smart program.” For example, there’s a program that likes to capitalize the first letter of every sentence you say. I won’t say who it is, but you’ll know when you see it.

If you need a program to correct something as obvious as capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, what’s the use of the human brain? And if you deliberately want to not capitalize, that’s more trouble, I don’t have a lot of menus to find out how to turn off this stupid option.

Only symbols can fully control a computer.

Let’s talk about a lot of new Linux users. Even though they use Linux, they genuinely think that Windows works well and they want Linux to be “like Windows” one day. You say: “One click of my mouse, one pull of my menu… I can finish my operation.” But I’ll tell you this: “Linux has never imitated Windows and never will. From its inception, Linux has worked in a way that is more advanced than Windows.

Linux belongs to those who stand up to symbols. Only symbols can fully control the computer.

See excellent UNIX programs, XFree86, FVWM, VIM, Emacs, proftpd, Mutt, wget, TIN… There isn’t one that doesn’t use a configuration file to set the options. Why don’t these programs have convenient menus to configure? Are their designers so moronic that they can’t even write a graphical configuration interface?

Of course not. Because the power of graphical configuration is extremely limited, and the power of configuration files and programming languages is unlimited. Using a graphical interface to configure these programs, if you want to achieve the configuration file effect, you need hundreds of menus, checkbox, Radio button,… You won’t be able to find the changes you need to make! The syntax of each program configuration file has a lot of similarities, generally is some commands, set some variables, parameters… Once you know one, the others are easy to understand. If you’re used to AWk, sed, Perl, that’s real automation.

The mouse is a great tool, but its expressive power is limited. You can’t make a computer fully understand you with a mouse; it only has three buttons. Take a look at my MetaPost page to see this weakness of the mouse. So while we love the mouse, we can’t totally rely on it.

13. Perfect coordination of small programs

This is the most important feature of UNIX, the idea behind UNIX’s design. Let each program have only one specific capability, and then let them cooperate. Xwindow is also in this good tradition. This may be where Windows and other operating systems fail. I can’t believe the uniformity of UNIX programming and how well it works. shell, grep, find, awk, sed, make, Perl, Emacs, vi, tin, Mutt, … They are so consistent! Once you learn sed, you can use almost any other program. Once you learn vi and VIM, you will find that the operation is so regular, it seems that the designers of VI have designed the perfect and uniform operation mode of VIM in today’s decades ago! And vi operation is also reflected in Mutt, TIN and many other programs. You can even set bash to vi to type the command line, which IS what I did. A program can call another program to get data, give it data to process and return, and “embed” another program in its own window.

On Windows and other non-UNIX operating systems, this kind of cooperation is very difficult. I have used Perl for some automated work under Windows. But Windows file manipulation, the pipeline is so unstable that programs can hardly cooperate. You can’t embed UltraEdit in a Visual Studio window. You can’t use an Expect script to control Telnet to a SHUimu TSINGHUA BBS.

Windows programs are large and complete, large and miscellaneous, and all E-mail programs need to provide their own editors, send and receive their own messages, and display their own attachments. Each BBS program provides its own Virtual Terminal, its own communication code. Each IDE provides its own editor, compiler, assembler, debugger. In order to use a new program, people need to get used to all the interfaces it provides, instead of using their favorite editor’s key bindings, menu organization… Can’t DIY!

You know, the most advanced computers are custom-made, you want what what CPU, what motherboard, how much memory, what hard disk, keyboard, mouse, monitor are their own choice. The highest level of skateboard, they want what brand of layout, what brand of sand, what bridge, what wheels, what bearings, are also their own choice. The most advanced ancient racket, wood, rubber, sponge, glue are optional… With Windows, you get a hodgepodge. It’s like buying a “branded machine” with only a few configurations and lots of software and services you don’t need. It’s like when you go and buy a fully assembled skateboard, you want bigger wheels and a narrower board, but you don’t have that option! Windows programs are the cheapest, worst kind of skateboard. But it will cost you more, because if one part breaks, or you don’t like it, you can’t replace it with a good one, you have to buy the whole thing again!

UNIX and Xwindow, on the other hand, are high-end “assembly goods”. For example, when I use Mutt, I can use VIM, I can use Pico to edit emails, I can use ImageMagick, I can use XV to display attached images, I can use Lynx to convert HTML attachments into text and embed them in Windows, I can also send HTML attachments to Mozilla for graphical display. I can have GnuPG digitally sign and encrypt emails for me, or I can use other PGP programs.

I want Postfix to send my mail instead of SendMail, I want FetchMail to receive my mail, forward it to Postfix, and have it processed by a Perl filter I wrote myself… I can do it all! I can choose my favorite specialized program to accomplish specialized work, and then combine them together, and I can also get the benefits of each separately.

14. UNIX is never a waste of time

Someone told me, “Look, I don’t have to learn anything with Windows. With Linux, it took me a week just to install!”

First of all, LET me tell you that it took you a week to install Linux, not because it was hard to install, but because you were used to Windows and initially had trouble understanding Linux. Think about when you first installed Windows. How long did it take you to figure out what a hard drive partition is? What is a drive letter? What is a catalog? Do you think Windows is that easy to learn? Even though you don’t think it took the time to learn it, you already know it when you use other people’s machines. And since you want Linux and Windows on your hard drive, it makes installation more difficult. And you certainly don’t have the help of experienced Linux users, who would have done it for you in 20 minutes. A week is way too much.

This is not a problem if you started with Linux. If you don’t use Windows, you’ll be used to /etc/usr/local/… Instead of C:, D:, E:… Isn’t it? If you’ve only used Linux, the first time you used Windows you probably asked yourself, “Where’s the /bin directory?”

Most importantly, the UNIX tools you’re used to will stay with you for life and won’t change or disappear easily. You never have to change tools again. Unless that tool is much better than yours and can simulate exactly what you have now.

A teacher in our lab in his 60s, using vi, CC, make… It has been decades, and his previous experience is definitely not in vain, and has taught us a batch of students. Vi was born with the initial release of UNIX and is still one of the top two editors in the world today! Some people have FVWM profiles that are more than 10 years old and still work completely unchanged.

When you switch from Borland C++ to VC, you have to adapt to a new environment: different menus, different colors, different buttons, different help information, different hotkeys, different compiler parameters, different debugger functions… I’m afraid it takes a lot of getting used to. As soon as you get used to VC, you’ll have to switch to VJ, PowerBuilder, C++Builder…

Many Windows programmers do this, starting with Turbo C under DOS, then Borland C, VC, C++ Builder,…… Keep jumping on the Microsoft bandwagon. And Microsoft’s SDK, MFC,.NET… Everything is constantly changing, constantly going wrong, and constantly changing… Windows programmers have to buy thick, heavy Microsoft Press books, read them for a month, and they’re out of date again. Today you can write VxD, tomorrow you must use WDM. You have to sign up for MSDN to keep up with Microsoft. Many people say, “Computers are for aristocrats.” This is what Microsoft created.

These things are the endless waste of everyone’s time and money. This is a waste of life! Why don’t we use UNIX, which has been consistent and perfect since its birth? You need to understand the design philosophy of advanced tools. UNIX’s tools are like our cars. The clutch, accelerator, brake, steering wheel, and rearview mirror are always in the same place. If you get used to it, you’ll know every part of your car so well that you can repair it yourself. Isn’t that good?

Someone said, “You say we need to know UNIX, do you have to know the architecture of a car to drive a car?” Ask any driver who doesn’t understand the mechanics of a car and he’s got a mixed license. Do you want a Microsoft for dummies? Let’s take a look:

The Microsoft car you buy has only one seat at the beginning, and you have to pay the car company for each additional seat. Every now and then the anti-collision airbag will pop up, saying it’s for your safety. Overhauls every 100 miles and engine changes every year. As a bonus, you must change to a new model of oil supplied by an oil company designated by Microsoft Motors. There is something wrong with your car, but the law says you are not allowed to take it apart to fix it. You have to go to a repair station designated by Microsoft Automotive and pay quite a lot of money to fix a minor problem.

Worst of all, the brakes and clutches are in different places every time you change model of Microsoft, and you have to get your driver’s license retested. If the brakes fail en route and you are seriously injured, you cannot Sue Microsoft Automotive, because when you buy the car you have to sign a contract that says, “Microsoft is not responsible for any death or injury caused to you or your family by a Microsoft car.”

15. How do I work entirely with GNU/Linux

So much for the bad things about Windows. I haven’t told you how I do some of the necessary things with Linux. Half a year ago, DUE to the bad configuration of Chinese, I always had a dual system, and from time to time I had to restart to Win2k to process Chinese characters. Then I found miniChinput, XSIM and SCIM. Now I can handle Chinese characters. And VIM and Emacs are getting better and better at supporting Chinese characters. Most of my text is edited in VIM, including programs, letters, web pages, LaTeX papers, MetaPost drawing language.

I don’t use a program like Word to write my papers. I use LaTeX because it is the most effective and convenient writing tool in the world, and it is the format required by most academic journals. The slides are all done with ConTeXt, so it’s very easy to use, and it’s very nice. You can read my TeX introduction.

As for drawing, you can use many visualization tools, such as XFIG, DIA. But for me, there are certain tasks that no visual tool can accomplish, and I need a language that can accurately describe graphics. I found MetaPost. It’s simple and easy to use, and the results are world class. My illustrations, if not images, are all drawn by MetaPost.

I used to complain that Mozilla-Mail often disappeared, ruining several of my nearly finished letters. I later discovered that Mozilla’s mail handlers were indeed unstable and weak, and that no experienced UNIX user would use them. Mutt is a very stable and reliable UNIX mail processor, and very powerful. I used to worry about the instability of Gnome and KDE. Now I found a very powerful FVWM. KDE, Gnome can also work with FVWM. Although Gnome and KDE are generally unstable, some of the components are good, as are many GTK and Qt programs, many of which can run independently of these desktop environments.

Linux has a lot of powerful and convenient ways to work that Windows doesn’t, or something like it, but it’s lame or inconvenient to use. Such as SSH services, rsync, CVS, expect…

Conclusion 16.

What is my purpose in writing so much? I hope the friends who love Linux, completely eliminate the nonsense that Microsoft and Windows have put in your head, stop believing in their so-called “new technology” and stop chasing Windows, because chasing Windows = going backwards. One of Marx’s important ideas is, “New things are not necessarily recent.”

UNIX, Xwindow, and TeX all predate Windows, but they represent advanced productivity. We should have a clear understanding of what is the real modernization and what is the real automation.

To dispel the illusion that learning computers is difficult, bravely pick up the likes of Bash, FVWM, TeX, VIM, Emacs, Mutt… Such a powerful program, brave face symbols. Stop complaining about “why Can’t Linux be like Windows?” stop wasting time trying out programs and upgrading. You need to understand how UNIX works, because that’s how most scientists work. Linux can be your best friend, and you need to know it, understand it, and trust it to be fully productive. Of course, it’s good to use “dumb apps” on game consoles, cell phones, pdAs, or when you’re using your computer for entertainment.

I hope that primary and middle school computer teachers can improve their own quality, make full use of the mysterious features of Linux in children’s enlightenment education, and arouse children’s curiosity about mathematics and symbols. Induce them to use computers to solve interesting problems in the world, rather than limiting their teaching to the operation of computers and their own problems.

Addendum: A Linux program I use to do everyday things

All right, all right. I know that you realize that you should switch to Linux, and that you regret having fallen for Microsoft in the first place. But don’t worry. Because these things are meant to be tools, they’re meant to be AIDS to your main task. It doesn’t matter that you chose the wrong tool. You still have your original expertise, and that’s all that matters. Tools have to be adapted slowly, not overnight, or you’ll get bored and give up.

If you just want to be a normal user like me, and your main goal is to use Linux to do your job, you don’t need to be a system administrator or a network administrator, because being a system administrator and a network administrator is really hard work. Here I bow to the laboratory network management students, thank you for your guidance and help. Don’t use your machine as a web server, don’t open unnecessary services, set up SSH, FTP is enough. This will save you time to learn a lot of things you don’t need to know. Don’t overthink “security” because Linux is already secure by default. But if you’re interested in learning more, that’s fine.

Here are some recommended programs that can handle general things. As for the scientific and engineering software you will use in your major, such as Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, HSpice, Design Compiler… There are other physical, chemical, biological… Of course there are versions of Linux and UNIX. Of course, many of them are not free, don’t always feel that everything should be free, free is not free. They’re the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of people, they’re solid programs, and they’re worth it.

Here are some of the Linux programs I use. There may be many in a list, but for your convenience, I have listed the ones that are more reliable. But in many cases only the first one is the one I’m actually using, and I don’t like trial programs. I am not a qualified network administrator, my server is only set up for my own needs, that can save me a lot of trouble.

Shell: bash. It combines the best of CSH and KSH, and has readline, which allows you to bind your keyboard as you like.

Editor: VIM, Emacs.

Program development: GCC, make, LD, Scheme48, J2SDK, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk…

Paper, slide tools: LaTeX, ConTeXt

Drawing tool: MetaPost. The language is so strong that I only use it. If you are not familiar with xFIG, DIA can be used to draw some flow diagrams and so on.

Image processing: ImageMagick. The import program can capture images on the screen, the convert program can convert image formats, and the display program can display images and simple editing (zooming, changing quality, converting format, simple drawing, simple reflection). That’s usually all I need. If you want more powerful graphics tools you can use Gimp, which is almost like Photoshop.

Automatic management tool: make. I can use make to automatically compile programs, automatically compile documents, automatically update illustrations… It’s fully automatic and won’t rework.

Numerical calculation program: SciLab. This program can basically replace Matlab.

Algebraic calculation program: MAXIMA. The program is based on one of the oldest computer algebra systems in the world: the MIT Macsyma system, issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). It is implemented in Common Lisp. Many modern symbol computing programs like Maple have learned a lot from MAXIMA. It is now distributed under the GPL with DOE approval and will always be free software.

Encryption program: GnuPG. That’s how I got my PGP key.

Package, compress the program. Everything: tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, RAR…

Virtual drive program. Linux does not require a virtual drive, just mount it.

FTP server: proftpd, VSFTPD. Proftpd is very powerful, but I only used the simplest setting.

WWW server: Apache. (I usually don’t.)

FTP client: LFTP, NCFTP. They are text-based, but much more convenient than graphical interfaces. LFTP, for example, has almost all of bash’s convenience features, Tab completion, bookmark, Queue, background downloads, mirroring… Linux also has GRAPHICAL FTP clients, but most are unstable and problematic. This is one small reason many people complain that Linux is inferior to Windows. There are a lot of people who use Wine to emulate LeapFTP on Windows. LFTP is much better than LeapFTP. You just need to get used to it.

Automatic download tool: Wget. It is very stable, once I downloaded a program using Internet Explorer and Mozilla, the files were all bad, and wGET was able to reliably transfer data. It can even mirror an entire web site, much better than Windows programs like WebZip, and doesn’t force ads into downloaded pages just because you don’t pay.

Virtual Terminal: RXVT, Xterm, GNOMe-terminal, MLterm…

X server: XFree86

Window manager: FVWM. Libstroke was added to the compilation.

Chinese input: XSIM. I modified it to fit the needs of FVWM. SCIM is also recommended.

Email processing: Mutt + Postfix + fetchmail

View PDF, PS, DJVU files: Acrobat Reader, XPDF, GhostScript, GV, DJVU toolkit and Netscape plug-ins.

Look at the CAJ documentation. I never read CAJ or anything like that. If YOU can’t find a PDF or PHOTOSHOP, go to the library.

See web pages: Mozilla, Phoenix, Lynx. Mozilla-xft displays much better than IE.

IBM Intelligent Dictionary, star Translation king.

Edit web pages: I use VIM to write HTML directly. If you want graphics you can use other ones like Screem, BlueFish.

Log in to other UNIX and Linux machines: openSSH, Telnet. I like to use openSSH to upload X programs from other machines to my machine for display through an SSH encrypted tunnel.

Log in to Windows2000 server display service: rdesktop… I tried it the other day. It was good. It hasn’t been used since.

Synchronization program: rsync. I use Rsync to sync data with certain machines over SSH or between different directories on my own machine.

BBS: RXVT (or any terminal) + Telnet + chatbot(helloooo robot program)

QQ, ICQ: I don’t have QQ or ICQ. However, you can use Gaim, which supports QQ, ICQ and many other im methods. ICQ users can also use Licq.

Play video: MPlayer, RealPlayer. MPlayer is so good that you can play VCD, DVD, divx, WMA, WMV… Windows students are very envious of me, said that Windows to put this need a lot of plug-ins. Rm is best played in RealPlayer, which is also free.

Play music: XMMS (MP3, OGG can be), MPG321 (mp3), OGG123 (ogG). Mpg321 is not as convenient as XMMS for managing music files, but SOMETIMES I use MPG321 to play MP3s in the background because I’m too lazy to open an XMMS window 🙂

Game: I think KDE’s ksokoban(pushing boxes) is very fun 🙂

Look at the Word document. Please turn all the documents into PDF or PS and send them to me. If there is no special format in the documents, just use text. Why bother? It used to be strange that there was no special format in the notification and they even sent doc attachment email. Now, our department uses text, PDF, and even pictures to send notices.

Other programs: There are many more that I need and you may not need. For example, Doctor Scheme,

Scheme48, Scsh, kawa… Only the Doctor Scheme has Windows versions of these programs. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that you might not be aware of: Xinetd, Telnetd, SSHD, Crond, ATD, LPD… They are all much better than Windows counterparts, or none at all.