Ravi’s Gadgets

Linux used to be for geeks. Not any more. With Fedora and Ubuntu on the first quadrant, Linux has become an operating system that is for everyone.

Why is Linux better than Windows?

In my blog I always praise Linux for several reasons. Let me list out a few points.

1. It is Open Source. You can customize it as you like.
2. It developed by a team of people just like you and me. You can give bug reports to the development which will certainly be reviewed, you can design graphics, and you can be an alter-ego to the OS, while with Windows, you cannot be anything more than a consumer.

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3. Windows is full of bugs, that can be fixed only by the developers. In linux, you are the developer. You can either fix it yourself and put up the fix for distribution, or wait for someone else to do it, as you will find people rushing up to get it done.
4. Linux has no intentionally placed bugs as in Windows.
5. Possiblity of virus infection of your computer is almost 0 when compared with that of Windows. No virus scanner is required, and that leaves your PC with a lot more resources.
6. Linux is a lot more Stable than Windows. Has got great security and is very strong, and no one can really hack into your PC.

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Windows Sucks. I have known this from the first time I installed Windows on my PC the very first time over 10 years ago.

Not that I had installed any other operating systems on a PC such as Mac or Linux, but that was something about Windows that I didnt like even at that time.

Linux installations wasnt that good at that time either. There was only redhat, and none of the hardware were supported. You had to get red had compatible hardware. It was fn to watch it install and boot however.  Some originality was there, unlike the stupid screens that say what you can do with windows when you install it.

About a year aog, when I installed ubuntu, that was the time that I really started to like computers. I really found out how good computers can be. Laptops battery started to last longer, PCs became less noisier and were relatively faster, and there was no need to defragment or install a virus scanner or worry about files getting infected or downloading an infected file. Even Wine doesnt get infected or spread viruses.

There is beryl, but ofcourse, at times I feel that the desktop and the task bar doesnt look as good as windows xp or vista, and is just as good as windws 98 or 2000 only. But a windows license is too much of price to pay. Who on earth would want to pay for bugs? And why do people go for windows and never turn to linux?

And vista is such a big flop, that it is having to be pre installed with PCs and Laptops. And it is n no way better than XP except that it requires more RAM to install.

I like the way Linux works, and I dont want to get back to windows. Stablity and security are the most basic things that ubuntu is giving my laptop. No one can get any data out of my laptop even if i loose it intentionally. Its not that I would loose it, because it is my horcrux. And for this one reason, even though I get drivers for new gadgets for devices like Webcams, cell phones, mp3 players and a whole lot of stuff, I wouldnt go back to windows, and I would promote it to people and make them write drivers for these gadgets adn have it submitted to the linux community rather than getting Bill Gates do and let him get rich.

I use about 10 different chat ids on various domains. 3 of Yahoo, 3 of MSN, 2 of Gmail 2 AOL and 4 IRC chats.

At any given time during any weekday, you will find atleast 200 people online on my messenger. Unable to manage them with Induvidual messengers, I put them all on Pidgin, and am using it for over a year now.  I can chat with everyone on pidgin with just 1 window. Pidgin was formerly called Gaim, and for some reason, I like gaim more than Pidgin.

Well, these days, with the post migration issues at the peek, with my phones put to test, my PC is receiving chats too. So many chats that my PC with 2 GB RAM is suffocating. I reply to most of the chats, at times I ask someone else to do it.

But I have a feeling that I have put both ubuntu and pidgin to a test, and have concluded that both are extremely stable. Windows cannot handle this many chats in parallel, while everyone is typing in lines and lines of messages.

And pidgin didnt hang either. I was able to switch smoothly around tabs and chat with the next client, close windows easily etc etc. The tabs were endless, and I wondered, what what would have happened if I had closed no tabs today. I could have taken a screen shot and sent it to guinnes record and found out what they have to say.

I cant imagine what would have happened if I was using Windows. It was bound to hang, and I would have spent most of the time of the day rebooting the PC rather than providing solution to the clients.

For your info, the PC that I was sitting on all day today is quite old, has a single core 1.6 Ghz 32 bit processor with a 40 GB drive and 2 GB of RAM. You need Ram ofcourse. You cant expect this performance with a 128 MB Ram installed on your machine.

I first started my website with a plain html page for the home page that listed all hosting plans, and with a buy now button from paypal, and when a user clicks on the button, he is taken to paypal, and when he pays, I get an email.

Once I see the email, I create his account manually, compose the mail manually, and send it to the paypal address. Thats how the deals were done back then in 2004.

In 2006, when I bought my first Linux server, my provider was asking me for what all software I needed in Fantastico. I was new to servers and server side software then, and I asked him for a list of software that were available. Among the huge list of what he gave me, was a software called phpcoin, which was readily installable. Well, thats an opensource software, and it requires a lot of customization, as as one of the draw backs of opensource software, getting support is not easy, and you will have to do a lot of going thru forums if you wanted something working in it. And its not a software thats as popular as ubuntu to have its own support forum where answers to all questions will be present.

But that backend that I saw there gave me the impression on what a real hosting site should look like, and what all features it should provide.

So i kept on looking for options, and I came to know about modernbill and awbs. Modenrbill’s license was expensive, so I settled with AWBS.

AWBS is a sexy software, and is designed developed and supported by a very small group of people, and it is very easy to get support from them.

It lists your products, lets your clients register, generates invoices, collects credit card info for automated billings, a very large number of payment gateways can be integrated, can be integrated with most populat helpdesk software like kayako, cerebrus, or use their own inbuilt support system which is actally good, and worth the money that you pay for it. It also has got an internal affiliate system, a mass mailing system, an ultra secure credit card storage system where you can store client’s credit card numbers that cannot be retrived without a key.

It is a lot better than modernbill, though people think modernbill is better.

Just have a look at awbs.com, and then at indyahozting.com, and you will get an idea on how a hosting site should look like.